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SCENES ILLUSTRATIVE OF STRIKING PASSAGES IN 
ENGLISH HISTORY AND POETRY. 



BY WILLIAM HOWITT, 

AUTHOR OF " THE RURAL LIFE OF ENGLAND," " STUDENT LIFE OF GERMANY,' 
" BOOK OF THE SEASONS," ETC. 



jFirst Serfcs. 



SECOND AMERICAN EDITION. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY AND HART. 

1842. 






S£^ 



it I 



philadelphia : 
bahhingtom - and h a s w e l l, 
phintebs. 



V iu ? 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

There is a passage in De Lamartine's Pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land, which expresses very clearly the nature and 
object of this work. " I have always loved to wander over 
the physical scenes inhabited by men I have known, ad- 
mired, loved, or revered, as well amongst the living as the 
dead. The country which a great man has inhabited and 
preferred, during his passage on the earth, has always ap- 
peared to me the surest and most speaking relic of himself: 
a kind of material manifestation of his genius — a mute 
revelation of a portion of his soul — a living and sensible 
commentary on his life, actions, and thoughts. When 
young, I passed many solitary and contemplative hours, 
reclined under olive trees which shade the gardens of Ho- 
race, in sight of the delightful cascades of the Tiber ; and 
often have I dropped to sleep in the evening, lulled by the 
noise of the beautiful sea of Naples, under the hanging 
branches of the vines, near the spot where Virgil wished 
his ashes to repose, because it was the most delicious site 
his eyes had ever beheld. How often, at a later period, 
have I passed mornings and evenings seated at the foot of 
the beautiful chestnut trees in the little valley of Charmettes, 
to which the remembrance of Jean Jaques Rousseau at- 
tracted me, and where I was retained by sympathy with 
his impressions, his reveries, his misfortunes, and his genius. 
And I have been thus attracted with respect to several 
other authors and great men, whose names and writings 
were deeply engraven on my memory. I wished to study 
them ; to become acquainted with them on the spot that 
had given them birth, or that had inspired them; and 



i v ADVERTISEMENT. 

almost always a scrutinizing glance might discover a se- 
cret and profound analogy between the country and the 
individual who had graced it ; between the scene and the 
actor ; between nature and the genius which derived its 
inspirations therefrom." 

These were exactly my feelings and ideas long before 
De Lamartine had thus penned them down ; and who, in- 
deed, has not experienced, more or less, the same impres- 
sions ? We need not visit the distant East to make the 
discovery; there is no country where the soil is more 
thickly sown with noble memories than our own, and those 
of the deeds, the sufferings, and the triumphs of our own 
progenitors. It has long been my opinion that to visit the 
most remarkable scenes of old English history and manners, 
and to record the impressions thence derived in their imme- 
diate vividness ; to restore, as it were, each place and its 
inhabitants to freshness, and to present them freed from the 
dust of ages and heaviness of antiquarian rubbish piled 
upon them, would be a labour responded to with emphasis 
by readers of the present day. The general approval of the 
experiment made in " The Rural Life," by introducing 
visits to Newstead, Annesley, and Hardwicke, and the inti- 
mations of great interest in the announcement of this work, 
received from all quarters, convinced me that I was not 
mistaken. The field is a wide and a rich one. The pre- 
sent volume may be considered but as a precursor of others 
on this subject, in which I have long been engaged. 

I have to present my warmest acknowledgments, not 
only to many private individuals for valuable hints and 
information, but also to the possessors of places visited, for 
the very cordial and liberal manner in which they en- 
deavoured to promote my object. 

W. H. 
Esheb, Dec. 18th, 1839. 



CONTENTS. 



Visit to Penshurst in Kent ; the Ancient Seat op the Sidneys 

— Character of the Sidney Family — of Sir Philip — of his Father 
Sir Henry — of Algernon — Shelley the Poet, a Sidney — present 
aspect of Penshurst — Sir Philip's Oak — Saccharissa's Walk — Ga- 
mage's Bower — Ben Jonson's Description of Penshurst — the Old 
Banqueting Hall — a Suite of Ancient Rooms, with all their An- 
tique Furniture and Paintings — Portraits of Sir Philip, Algernon, 
and the Countess of Pembroke, Saccharissa, Countesses of Leices- 
ter and Carlisle — the Gallery full of Historical Portraits — Sir 
Philip and his brother Robert — Family MSS. — Household Book — 
Locks of Hair of Sir Philip and Algernon — Church and Parsonage 13 

Visit to the Field of Culloden — Peculiar Interest of Battle- 
Fields — Review of Events leading to the Battle of Culloden — In- 
verness, and walk to Culloden — present aspect of the Field — 
Tradition of the valiant Blacksmith — the Graves of the Slain — 
Burns's Visit to them, and his Feelings — Traditions of the Field 
— strange Adventures of the Chevalier Johnstone — his Account 
of the Atrocities of the Duke of Cumberland — Visit to a Cottage 
on the Field — Belief of the Cottagers that another Battle will be 
fought, founded on Visions of Second-sight — Wully Mackenzie 
entertains us with his Bagpipes 51 

Visit to Stratford-on-Avon, and the Haunts of Shakspeare 
—Aspect of the Country — visible signs of Shakspeare's Fame in 
Stratford — Vindication of his domestic character — Ann Hathaway's 
Cottage — its Garden and Plants — Dewberries — Danger of the Cot- 
tage being pulled down — Present Condition of the Shakspeare 
Family — William Shakspeare Smith, a Schoolboy, descendant of 
Shakspeare's Sister Joan — Relics of Shakspeare in Stratford 
— Mr. Reason's Collection — Mary Hornby's attempt to obliterate 
all the names of Visiters to the Room of his Birth — the Shaks- 
peare Albums — a sample of Inscriptions from them — Shakspeare's 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



Tomb — Charlecote Park — odd local notion of Shakspeare, de- 
rived from a Statue of Diana — present State and Appearance of 
the Park and House — Bust of Sir Thomas Lucy — local estimation 
of the present Family of the Lucys — Paintings — Monuments in 
the Church — Sir Thomas the Patron of Fox the Martyrologist — 
Character of Lady Lucy— misrepresented by Shakspeare — Clop- 
ton Hall — the Cloptons of Clopton, the great Family of Stratford 
— Sir Hugh Clopton an admirer of Shakspeare — Lord Carew of 
Elizabeth's reign, married the Heiress of the Clopton's — splendid 
Tomb of himself and Countess — state of Clopton Hall some years 
ago — Traditions of the Tragic ends of Charlotte and Margaret 
Clopton — decay of the Family and sale of the Estate — Margaret's 
Well — Ireland's account of his visit there in quest of Shakspeare 
Papers . . . . . 75 

Visit to Combe Abbey, Warwickshire — Attempt to carry off from 
Combe Abbey Elizabeth of Bohemia, by the Gunpowder Plot Con- 
spirators — singular fate of some of these Conspirators — tragic His- 
tory of Sir Walter Smith — his Son juggled out of his Estate by 
Sir John Lyttleton — Fate of Sir John Lyttleton's Descendants — 
singular Search of Hendlip Hall — Elizabeth of Bohemia's subse- 
quent Connexion with Combe Abbey — the Portraits of the Stuart 
Family, and other Paintings brought hither by her from Germany 
— Fatality of her Ambition ..... 128 

Visit to Linoisfarne, Flodden Field, and other Scenery of 
Marmion — Tact of the Poets in fixing the locality of their Poems 
in fine Scenery illustrated in Marmion — wild appearance of Holy 
Isle, as seen by us at twilight — beauty and strength of the Ruins 
of Lindisfarne — affecting Character of Maritime Burying-grounds 
— approach to Flodden Field — its present appearance — singular 
fate of King James's Remains ..... 146 

Visrr to Bolton Priory — Men of Genius shown to be the Prac- 
tical Men — united effect of Poetry and Steam — Scenery of the 
White Doe of Rylston — Paradisiacal Beauty of Wharfdale — 
and Scenery round Bolton Priory — the Ruins — the Duke of Devon- 
shire's Hunting Seat — the Strid — Barden Tower— Remarkable 
Persons who have lived there — the celebrated Anne Clifford, 
Countess of Pembroke — her singular Inscription — the Shepherd 
Lord — Walk over the Fells to Rylston — Norton Tower — Remarks 
on Wordsworth's Poem of the White Doe 170 



CONTENTS. Vii 

Visit to Hampton Court — The Palace and Gardens now thrown 
open to the Public — great resort there, and delight of the People 
— Sketch of the Character, Progress, and Fall of Wolsey — Wol- 
sey's Tower at Esher — his Establishment and State at Hampton 
— Royal Festivities there — Remarkable Events occurring there 
from Henry VIII. to the present time — Peep into Bushy Park — 
— Gardens and Wilderness of Hampton Court — Description of 
the Palace both in its ancient and present state — the Suite of 
State Rooms, with all their Paintings, particularly the Beauties 
of the Courts of Charles II. and William III. — the Cartoons of 
RafFaelle — the Portrait Gallery — its numerous Historic Portraits — 
singular Portrait of Queen Elizabeth 200 

Visit to Compton-Winyates, Warwickshire — Solitary and se- 
cluded situation of this old house, the property of the Marquis of 
Northampton — impressions on approaching it — its general appear- 
ance — curious Carving on the Screen in the Hall — Royal Embla- 
zonings on Windows, Walls, and Ceilings — quaint and curious 
Carvings in the Chapel — account of the Compton Family — unique 
Letter of the first Countess of Northampton — Popish chapel in the 
roof— Hiding-places of the Soldiers of the Civil Wars in the roof 
— profound Solitude of the place 257 

A Day-Dream at Tintagel — Wild situation of Tintagel Castle — 
Scene as it may be imagined in King Arthur's days— Charms of 
old Romance, and influence of Poetry on the National Character 
and Fortunes 277 

Visit to Staffa and Iona — A Voyage to the Western Isles, a 
great event a few years ago— now a matter of every day — wild 
beauty of the Scenery on the Voyage — Scene in the Cave of Staffa 
— general aspect of Iona — Children on the Shore offering Shells 
and Green Pebbles — Ruins, Tombs of the Norwegian Kings, 
Crosses, and other Remains — curious Sculptures — Procession of 
Modern Pilgrims 295 

Visit to Edge-Hill — Scenery of Edge-Hill — solitary Inn of the 
Sun-rising — Round-Tower — Scene of the Battle — Battle Farm — 
the Grave Fields — account of the Battle — Bullet-Hill — Anecdote 
of Cromwell — Traditions — Anecdote of King Charles on his way 
to the Battle meeting Richard Shuckburgh hunting — the circum- 



Viii CONTENTS. 

stance fatal to Richard Shuckburgh — tragic Love Affair in the 
family of his descendants . 308 

Visit to the Great Jesuits' College at Stonyhurst, in Lan- 
cashire — Fine situation and picturesque neighbourhood of Stony- 
hurst College — Whalley Abbey — Mitton Church— the Old Sex- 
ton, his attention to the last Rector's Tomb — the splendid Monu- 
ments of the Sherburnes — curious Monumental Records of the 
Sherburnes — Anecdote of the Village Sculptor — description of 
the College, its Paintings, Relics, and mode of Education — Gar- 
dens — Conversation of the peculiar position of the Jesuits there . 320 

Visit To the Ancient City of Winchester — Historical Reminis- 
cences — the Capital of the British and Saxon Kings — favourite 
City and Burial-place of Alfred — resort of many subsequent Mo- 
narchs — Remarkable Events there — General Aspect of the City 
— Fair of St. Giles's Hill — The Cathedral — its Venerable Beauty 
—the Beauty of Gothic Architecture — Monuments of Joseph War- 
ton and Bishop Hoadley — splendid Chantries of Wykeham, Beau- 
fort, Fox, and Waynflete — Tomb of William Rufus — Noble Choir 
— Chests containing the bones of the Saxon Monarchs — Sonnet 
by Richard Howitt,on the Matin Service — Grave of Izaak Walton 
— Wykeham's College— William of Wykeham's Origin and 
Career — Account of the School — The Hospital of St, Cross— 
History and present State of it — its noble Norman Church — Con- 
cluding Remarks . . . . '. . . . 346 

Visit to Wotton Hall, Staffordshire — Alfieri and Rousseau 
in England — Alfieri's Early Character and Conduct in England 
— the Arrival of Rousseau at Wotton — his temporary Content- 
ment there — his Acquaintance — his Flight — present Traditions of 
him at Wotton j . . .405 

Sacrament Sunday at Kilmorac — Peculiar mode of administer- 
ing the Sacrament in Scotland — administered in the Highlands 
every summer in the Open Air — Description of such a Scene as 
witnessed by the Author at the Falls of Kilmorac . . . 428 



• 



VISIT TO PENSHURST IN KENT, 

THE ANCIENT SEAT OF THE SIDNEYS. 

* * * * Tread, 

As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts, 
The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born, — 
Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man 
His own delightful genius ever feigned. 

SOUTHEY. 

England; amongst her titled families, can point to none 
more illustrious than that of Sidney. It is a name which 
carries with it the attestation of its genuine nobility. Others 
are of older standing in the realm. It is not one of those to 
be found on the roll of Battle Abbey. The first who bore 
it in England is said to have come hither in the reign of 
Henry III. There are others, too, which have mounted 
much higher in the scale of mere rank ; but it* may be 
safely said that there is none of a truer dignity, nor more 
endeared to the spirits of Englishmen. In point of standing 
and alliance, there is hardly one of our old and most cele- 
brated families with which it will not be found to be con- 
nected. Warwick, Leicester, Essex, Northumberland, Pem- 
broke, Carlisle, Burleigh, Sutherland, Rutland, Strangford, 
Sunderland, are some of the families united by blood or 
marriage with the house and fortunes of the Sidneys. 
The royal blood of England runs in the veins of their 
children. But it is by a far higher nobility than that of 
ancient descent, or martial or political power, that the name 
of Sidney arrests the admiration of Englishmen. It is one 

2 



14 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

of our great watch-words of liberty. It is one of the house- 
hold words of English veneration. It is a name hallowed 
by some of our proudest historical and literary associations ; 
identified in the very staple of our minds with a sense of 
high principle, magnanimity of sentiment, and generous and 
heroic devotion to the cause of our country and of man. 
When we would express in a few magical syllables all that 
we feel and comprehend of patriotism and genius, the names 
that rush involuntarily to our lips are those of Milton, 
Hampden, Sidney, and such men. It is a glorious distinc- 
tion for one family to have given one such name to its 
country : but it is the happiness of the house of Sidney to 
number more than one such in its line, and to have enriched 
our literature with a brilliant constellation of names, both 
male and female, that have been themselves poets, or the 
admired theme of poets ; literary, or the friends of all the 
literary and learned of their times. They were not merely 
of the aristocracy of rank, but of the aristocracy of mind ; 
and it is from that cause, and that alone, that their name is 
embedded like a jewel in the golden frame-work of the 
language. 

Of this distinguished line, the most illustrious and popular 
was unquestionably Sir Philip. The universal admiration 
that he won from his contemporaries is one of the most 
curious circumstances of the history of those times. The 
generous and affectionate enthusiasm with which he inspired 
both his own countrymen and foreigners, has, perhaps, no 
parallel. The "admirable Crichton" is the only person 
who occurs to our minds as presenting anything like the 
same universality of knowledge and accomplishments ; but 
Crichton was a meteor which blazed for a moment, and left 
only a name of wonder. Sir Philip still continues to be 
spoken of by all genuine poets and minds of high intellect 
with much of the same affectionate honour that he received 
from his own age. " He approaches," says Dr. Aikin, 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 15 

" more nearly to the idea of a perfect man, as well as of a 
perfect knight, than any character of any age or nation."* 

This perfection of character is shown by these particulars : 
that from his boyhood he was eager for the acquisition of 
all possible knowledge, — language, philosophy, poetry, 
every species of art and science, were devoured by him ; 
yet he did not give himself up merely to the pursuit of 
knowledge : he never became a mere book-worm. He was 
equally fond of field sports and manly exercises. He was 
looked up to as the perfect model of a courtier, without the 
courtier's baseness of adulation. Elizabeth pronounced 
him the brightest jewel of her crown. He was deemed the 
very mirror of knighthood. In the camp he was the ardent 
warrior : he was sent on foreign embassage of high im- 
portance, and proved himself a dexterous politician. There 
was a universality of talent and of taste about him that 
marked him as a most extraordinary man. His facility of 
amassing information and putting on accomplishment was 
marvellous. Yet he never seemed to h ave any mere worldly 
ambition. It was the pure love of glory that animated 
him ; and in striving for it, he never for a moment appeared 
capable of the common jealousies of emulation ; on the 
contrary? he was the friend, and the warm and beloved 
friend of every one who was himself most distinguished. 
Sir Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, had it inscribed 
on his monument, as his peculiar glory, that he was the 
friend of Sir Philip Sidney. He was the friend of 
Spenser, Dyer, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Sir Henry and Sir 
Edward Wotton, the learned Hurbert Languet, and indeed 
of all the finest spirits of his age ; yet it was, after all, less 
by the brilliancy of his intellect than by the warmth of his 
heart, that he won so singularly on the admiration of all 
men. The grand secret of his unprecedented popularity lay 

* Annual Review, p. 919. 



1 q VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

in the nobility of his nature. Nothing could be more de- 
lightful than the high, unworldly, and incorruptible character 
of his mind. It was this ardent, sunny, unselfish disposition 
which was so beautiful in all his family relations. His 
father, Sir Henry Sidney, himself one of the noblest cha- 
racters in history, says of him, in a letter to his second son, 
Robert Sidney : " Follow the advice of your most loving 
brother, who in loving you is comparable with me, or 
exceedeth me. Imitate his virtues, exercises, studies, and 
actions. He is a rare ornament of his age ; the very for- 
mula that all well-disposed young gentlemen of our court 
do form also their manners and life by. In truth, I speak 
it without flattery of him, or myself, he hath the most vir- 
tues that I ever found in any man" 

What a proud testimony from a father to a son ! But the 
same admirable affection constantly displayed itself towards 
his brother and sister. His letters to his brother Robert are 
full of the most delightfully gay, yet loving and wise spirit. 
Writing to him while on his travels, he declared, — what he 
invariably proved by his conduct, — "There is nothing I 
spend so pleaseth me as that which is for you. If ever I 
have ability, you will find it; if not, yet shall not any 
brother living be better beloved than you of me." 

His tender attachment to his sister, the celebrated 
Countess of Pembroke, is known to all the world. It was 
to Wilton that he betook himself during his temporary 
absence from court, on account of his difference with the 
insolent Earl of Oxford, to write his Arcadia. It was to her 
that he dedicated it, and more than dedicated it, calling it 
" Pembroke's Arcadia." It was to her that he sent it, sheet 
by sheet, when he was not present with her to read it to 
her ; living in her approbation of it, and seeking no other 
fame from it, for it was not published till after his death. 

Such were the noble and endearing qualities that made Sir 
Philip Sidney the idol of his times in foreign countries as 



VISIT TO PENSHUEST. 17 

much as in his own ; that induced Poland to offer him its 
crown ; that covered his hearse with the laments of all the 
learned and poetical amongst his cotemporaries — three 
volumes of such funereal tributes in various languages being 
published on the occasion of his death : the two great 
English universities striving which should outdo the other 
in number and intensity of its " melodious tears." 

The evidences of Sir Philip Sidney's genius which have 
come down to us are to be found in his Arcadia ; his Astro- 
phel and Stella ; his Defence of Poesy ; his Sonnets and 
Songs ; and there have not been wanting those who assert 
that they do not bear out by their merit the enthusiastic 
encomiums of his cotemporaries. Lord Orford has pro- 
nounced the Arcadia " a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, 
pastoral romance ;" and Hume, Tytler, and others, have 
echoed the opinion. 

How many are there of our own age who are prepared 
by actual perusal to sanction or disallow of this dictum 1 
How many have read that poem of which every one speaks 
as a matter of knowledge — Spenser's Faery Queen ? How 
many, even, have waded through Paradise Lost ? Every 
poetical spirit which has qualified itself to give an answer, 
must declare that the literary relics of Sir Philip Sidney, — 
writings thrown off rapidly m the midst of many pursuits 
and many distracting attentions, and before death at the 
early age of thirty -two, — must pronounce them well 
worthy of his fame. 

His poetry and prose too. have all the marks of stiffness, 
and affected point of that period ; but every page of his 
composition abounds with sober and with brilliant thoughts. 
His sonnets are delightful testimonies to the inward beauty 
and tenderness of the man. Many readers have been made 
familiar with the fine opening of one of his sonnets, by 
Wordsworth introducing it as the opening of one of his :. — * 



18 VISIT TO PENSHUEST. 

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climh'st the sky, 
How silently, and with how sad a face ! 

and every real lover of poetry, if he opens the volume of Sir 
Philip Sidney, will find much that will equally delight him, 
and generate within him trains of high and sober thought. 

But, in my opinion, it is the Arcadia which must stand as 
the best image of his " inner man." Whoever reads it, 
should read it with reference to the spirit of the age, and 
turn relentlessly over all the pastoral episodes, and he will 
then find a volume full of stirring interest, striking invention, 
and that living tone of high, pure, heroic spirit, which 
scorned everything base ; which is, in truth, the grand 
characteristic of Sidney ; — a spirit which stands up by the 
low and cunning knowingness of our own day, like one of 
the statues of Greece by the wigged and sworded objects of 
modern sculpture. 

Such passages as the Prayer of Pamela are amongst the 
noblest specimens of impassioned eloquence in the lan- 
guage. Charles I. showed how deeply that passage had 
touched him by adopting it as his own petition to the Su- 
preme Being as he went to the scaffold ; and the closing 
portion of it shall close these passing remarks on Sir Philip 
Sidney's writings, as very expressive of his nature. — " Let 
calamity bee the exercise, but not the overthrow of my 
virtue. Let the power of my enemies prevail, but prevail 
not to my destruction. Let my greatness bee their prey, 
let my pain bee the sweetness of their revenge ; let them, if so 
it seems good unto thee, vex me with more and more pun- 
ishment : but, Lord, let never their wickedness have such 
a hand, but that I may carry a pure mind in a pure body l" 

The death of Sir Philip Sidney, from a wound received 
on the field of Zutphen, has become celebrated by the cir- 
cumstance continually referred to as an example of the 
most heroic magnanimity — giving up the water for which 
he had earnestly implored to a dying soldier near — saying 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. jg 

"he has more need of it than I." But the whole of his 
behaviour from that time to the hour of his death, twenty- 
five days afterwards, was equally characteristic, — being 
spent amongst his friends in the exercise of the most ex- 
emplary patience and sweetness of temper, and in the dis- 
cussion of such solemn topics as the near view of eternity 
naturally brings before the spirit of the dying Christian. 

Algernon Sidney is as fine a character, though seen under 
another and a sterner aspect. He was bora to more 
troublous times and a less courtly scene. He had evidently 
formed himself upon a model of Roman virtue. He was a 
pure republican, placing public virtue before him as his 
guide, from which neither interest nor ambition were ever 
able to make him swerve ; and that such was his life as 
well as his creed, has been nobly avowed by a great writer 
of very opposite political profession. 

Great men have been amongst us ; hands that penned 

And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none; 

The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, 

Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend. 

These moralists could act and comprehend ; 

They knew how genuine glory is put on ; 

Taught us bow rightfully a nation shone 

In splendour ; what strength was that would not bend 

But in magnanimous weakness. 

Wordsworth. 

We see in his portraits the firm and melancholy look of 
a man who had grown up for political martyrdom, and the 
times afforded him but too much opportunity to arrive at 
it. The words of one of his letters to his father, Lord Lei- 
cester,* are more demonstrative of his character than the 
most laboured exposition of it by any other man can be, — 
" I walk in the light God hath given me ; if it be dimme or 

* Blencowe's Sidney Papers. 



20 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 



uncertaine I must beare the penalty of my errors. I hope 
to do it with patience, and that noe burthen should be very 
grievous to me except sinne and shame ! God keepe me 
from these evils, and in all things else dispose of me accord- 
ing to his pleasure." They were singular coincidences, 
that these two great men of one family died young — one 
in the field and the other on the scaffold ; and that each had 
a sister celebrated for their charms by the poets, and one 
herself a poet — the Countess of Pembroke, ' c Sidney's sister, 
Pembroke's mother •" and Waller's Saccharissa. 

In thus noticing the exalted principles and splendid cha- 
racters of these Sidneys, it is a very natural and important 
question, what were the influences under which such men 
and women sprung up from one stock ? Ben Johnson, in 
his visit to Robert Sidney, Sir Philip's brother, when Earl 
of Leicester, can partly let us into the secret : 

They are and have been taught religion. Thenee 
Their gentle spirits have sucked innocence. 
Each morne and even they are taught to pray 
With the whole household, and may every day 
Reade in their virtuous parents' noble parts, 
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts. 

The Forest, ii. 

Sir Philip Sidney grew under the most favourable aus- 
pices. His mother was Mary Dudley, the daughter of the 
Duke of Northumberland, and sister of Lord Guildford Dud- 
ley, the husband of Lady Jane Grey. The tragedies which 
the enthronement of Lady Jane brought into her family, 
made her retire from the world, and devote herself to the 
careful education of her children. His father, Sir Henry 
Sidney, was, as I have already observed, one of the noblest 
and best of men, and one who, had he not been eclipsed by 
the glory of his descendants, must have occupied more of 
the attention of the English historian than he has done. In 



VISIT TO PENSHUEST. 21 

his arms expired the pious young prince, Edward VI., who 
entertained the warmest friendship for him ; and his con- 
duct in the government of Ireland, of which he was thrice 
Lord Deputy, and all his recorded sentiments, exhibit him 
a rare example of integrity and wisdom. 

Such were some of the Sidneys of other days ; and, as if 
poetry were destined to break forth with periodical lustre 
in this family, it has now to add Percy Bysshe Shelley to 
its enduring names : for Shelley was a lineal Sidney. The 
present Sir John Shelley Sidney being his paternal uncle, 
and his cousin Philip Sidney, Lord de L'Isle, being the 
present possessor of Penshurst. 

In these preliminary pages I have traced some of the 
causes which must throw a lasting and peculiar interest 
around Penshurst ; let us now hasten thither at once. 



Having received from Lord de L'Isle an order to see 
everything of public interest at Penshurst, accompanied by 
an expectation that he would himself be there, and ready to 
give me all the information in his power, I went there on 
Tuesday, September 25th, 1838. 

I took coach to Tunbridge on Monday, and after break- 
fast on Tuesday morning walked on to Penshurst through a 
delightful country ; now winding along quiet green lanes, 
now looking out on the great beautiful dale in which Tun- 
bridge stands, and over others valleys to my left. Green fields 
and rustic cottages interspersed amongst woods ; and the 
picturesque hop-grounds on the steep slopes and in the hol- 
lows of the hills, now in their full glory : and all the rural 
population out and busy in gathering the hops, completed 
such scenery as I expected to find in the lovely county 
of Kent. 



22 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

The whole road as I came from town was thronged with 
huge wagons of pockets of new hops, piled nearly as high 
as the houses they passed, a great quantity of these going 
up out of Sussex ; and here, at almost every farm-house 
and group of cottages, you perceived the rich aromatic 
odour of hops, and saw the smoke issuing from the cowls 
of the drying kilns. The whole county was odoriferous 
of hop. 

The first view which I got of the old house of Penshurst, 
called formerly both Penshurst Place and Penshurst Castle,* 
was as I descended the hill opposite to it. Its gray walls 
and turrets, and high-peaked and red roofs rising in the 
midst of them ; and the new buildings of fresh stone, mingled 
with the ancient fabric, presented a very striking and vener- 
able aspect. 

It stands in the midst of a wide valley, on a pleasant ele- 
vation ; its woods and park stretching away beyond, north- 
wards ; and the picturesque church, parsonage, and other 
houses of the village, grouping in front. 

From whichever side you view the house, it strikes you 
as a fitting abode of the noble Sidneys. Valleys run out on 
every side from the main one in which it stands ; and the 
hills, which are everywhere at some distance, wind about 
in a very pleasant and picturesque manner, covered with 
mingled woods and fields, and hop-grounds. The park 
ranges northward from the house in a gently-ascending 
slope, and presents you with many objects of interest, not 
merely in trees of enormous growth, but in trees to which 
past events and characters have given an everlasting at- 
traction ; especially Sir Philip Sidney's Oak, Saccharissa's 
Walk, and Gamage's Bower. Southey and Waller have 
both celebrated the Sidney oak. Southey says, — 

That stately oak, 
Itself hath mouldered now : 

* Originally Pencester. 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 23 

Zouch, in his life of Sir Philip, on the contrary, says it 
was cut down in 1768. It is probable that both statements 
are erroneous ; for the oak which tradition has called " the 
Sidney Oak," and " the Bear's Oak," no doubt in allusion to 
the Bear-and-ragged staff in the Leicester arms, is still stand- 
ing. Probably the one cut down was what Ben Jonson calls 
" the Ladies' Oak." 

Amongst the many tributes of respect to Penshurst, none 
are so graphic and complete as that of Ben Jonson. This 
is to the life. You see in every line that the stout old dra- 
matist had walked over the ground, and beheld the house 
and the people he describes. We shall have speedy reason 
to recur to this description to show how true to the fact 
it is. 

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show 

Of touch, or marble ; nor canst boast a row 

Of polished pillars, or a roofe of gold: 

Thou hast no lantherne whereof tales are told ; 

Or stayre, or courts ; but standst an ancient pile, 

And these grudged at, art reverenced the while. 

Thou joyst in better markes, of soyle, of ayre, 

Of wood, of water : wherein thou are faire. 

Thou hast thy walks for health as well as sport ; 

Thy Mount to which the Dryads do resort, 

Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made, 

Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade. 

That taller tree, which of a nut was set 

At his great birth where all the Muses met. 

There, in the writhed bark are cut the names 

Of many a sylvane token with his flames. 

And thence the ruddy Satyres oft provoke. 

The lighter Fawnes to reach thy Ladies's Oake. 

Thy copps, too, named of Gamage,'thou hast there, 
That never fails to serve thee seasoned deere, 
When thou wouldst feast, or exercise thy friends. 
The lower land, that to the river bends, 
Thy sheepe, thy bullocks, kine and calves do feed ; 



24 VISIT TO PENSHUKST. 

The middle ground thy mares and horses breed. 

Each banke doth yield thee coneys ; and the topps, 

Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sidney's copps, 

To crowne thy open table doth provide 

The purpled pheasant with the speckled side ; 

Thy painted partrich lyes in every field, 

And for thy messe is willing to be killed ; 

And if the high-swoln Medway faile thy dish, 

Thou hast thy ponds that pay thee tribute fish ; 

Fat, aged carps, that runne into thy net, 

And pikes, now weary their owne kinde to eat, 

As loth the second draught, or cast to stay, 

Officiously, at first, themselves betray. 

Bright eels that emulate them, leape on land 

Before the fisher, or into his hand. 

Thou hast thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers, 
Fresh as the ayre, and new as are the hours. 
The early cherry with the later plum, 
Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come. 
The blushing apricot and woolly peach 
Hang on thy walls that every child may reach. 
And though thy walls be of the country stone, 
They're reared with no man's ruin, no man's grone. 
There's none that dwell about them wish them downe ; 
But all come in, the farmer and the clowne, 
And no one empty-handed, to salute 
Thy lord and lady though they have no suite. 
Some bring a capon, some a rural cake, 
Some nuts, some apples ; some that think they make 
The better cheeses, bring 'hem ; or else send 
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend 
This way to husbands ; and whose baskets beare 
An emblem of themselves in plum or peare. 

But what can this (more than express their love) 
Adde to thy free provisions, far above 
The need of such"? whose liberal boord doth flow 
With all that hospitalitie doth know ! 
Where comes no guest but is allowed to eate 
Without his feare, and of thy lord's owne meate ; 
Where the same beere, and breade, and self-same wine 
That is his lordship's shall be also mine. 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 25 

And I not faine to sit (as some this day 

At great men's tables) and yet dine away* 

Here no man tells my cups ; nor standing by, 

A waiter doth my gluttony envy : 

But gives me what I call, and lets me eate ; 

He knows below, he shall find plentie of meate. 

Thy tables hoard not up for the nexte day, 

Nor when I take my lodging need I pray 

For fire, or lights, or livorie ; all is there, 

And if thou, then, wert mine, or I reigned here. 

There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay. 

This found King James when hunting late this way, 

With his brave sonne the prince ; they saw thy fires 

Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires 

Of thy Penates had been set on flame 

To entertaine them, or the country came 

With all their zeale to warme their welcome here. 

What great (I will not saye but) sodayne cheare 

Didst thou then make 'hem ! and what praise was heaped 

On thy good lady then ! who, therein, reaped 

The just reward of her high houswifry ; 

To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh 

When she was farre ; and not a room but drest 

As if it had expected such a guest ! 

These, Penshurst, are thy praise ; and yet not all. 
Thy lady's noble, fruitfull, chaste withall. 
His children, thy great lord may call his owne; 
A fortune in this age but rarely knowne. 
They are and have been taught religion ; thence 
Their gentler spirits have sucked innocence. 
Each morn and even they are taught to pray, 
With the whole household, and may, every day, 
Reade, in their vertuous parents' noble parts 
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts. 

Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee 
With other edifices, when they see 
Those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else, 
May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells. 

Ben Jonson. — The Forest, ii. 

The house now presents two principal fronts. The one 

3 



26 VISIT TO PENSHURST, 

facing westward, formerly looked into a court, called the 
President's Court, because the greater part of it was built 
by Henry Sidney, the father of Sir Philip, and Lord Presi- 
dent of the Council established in the Marches of Wales.- 
The court is now thrown open, and converted into a lawn 
surrounded by a sunk fence, and overlooking a quiet valley 
of perhaps a mile in length, terminated by woody hills of 
great rural beauty. This court will eventually be laid out 
in a flower garden ; Lord de L'Isle having fitted up the suite 
of rooms in this, and the north front, for the family use, in- 
cluding dining and drawing rooms, library, and other rooms, 
which have been done under the superintendence of Mr. 
Rebecca, of Piccadilly, in the very best taste : exhibiting, at 
once, a striking unity with the general character of the old 
pile, and yet possessing all the elegance and convenience 
required by modern habits. Oak wainscoting has been in- 
troduced, yet not in such heaviness and profusion as to take 
away from that sense of finish and of comfort that we now, 
look for in a place of family abode : and the ceilings, with 
their cornices and compartments, partake of the same cha- 
racter. They display true keeping and good sense. You 
meet with none of that extravagance and broken-up-ness 
of design which offend you in many attempts to restore the 
ancient mansion, and to adapt it to present uses. You do 
not, as you advance, find yourself at this moment in a 
Chinese room, in the next in an Egyptian, and then in an 
Italian or a French one. All is English, and English of the 
right date, which is rarer still. The ornaments are taken 
from the family arms ; and while they continually remind you 
that you are in the abode of the Sidneys and the Leicesters, 
you are also reminded by the freshness of all the finishings, 
that you are there too in the days of their polished descend- 
ants. 

This front, as well as the northern one, is of great length. 
It is of several dates and styles of architectum The fa§ade 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 27 

is of two stories, and battlemented. The centre division, 
which is of recent erection, has large windows of triple 
arches, with armonial shields between the upper and lower 
stories. The south end of the fagade is of an ancient date, 
with smaller mullioned windows; the northern portion 
with windows of a similar character to those in the centre, 
but less and plainer. Over this fagade shows itself the 
tall gable of the ancient banqueting hall which stands in the 
inner court. At each end of the fagade projects a wing, 
with its various towers of various bulk and height ; some 
square, of stone, others octagon, of brick, with a great di- 
versity of tall, worked chimneys, which, with steep roofs, 
and the mixture of brick-work and stone-work all through 
the front, give a mottled, but yet very venerable aspect 
to it. 

The north and principal front, facing up the park, has 
been restored by its noble possessor, and presents a battle- 
mented range of stone buildings of various projections, 
towers, turrets, and turreted chimneys, which, when the 
windows are put in, which is not yet fully done, will 
have few superiors amongst the castellated mansions of 
England. 

The old gateway tower remains, and still forms the car- 
riage entrance. On its front was fixed aloft, a hatchment 
quartering the royal arms with those of the Sidneys, denot- 
ing the death of Lady de L'Isle, the daughter of the late 
king. Over the door is a stone tablet with this inscrip- 
tion : — 

The most religious and renowned Prince Edward 
the Sixth Kinge of England France and Ireland 
gave this house op pencester with the mannors 
landes and appurtenances ther unto belonging 
unto his trustye and wel-beloved servant syr 
William Sydny knight bannaret servinge him prom 



23 VISIT TO PENSHUBST. 

THE TYME OP HIS BIRTH UNTO HIS CORONATION IN THE 
OFFICES OF CHAMBERLAYNE AND STUARDE OF HIS HOUSE- 
HOLD IN COMMEMORATION OF WHICH MOST WORTHIE AND 
FAMOUS KlNGE SlR HENRIE SYDNEY KNIGHT OF THE MOST 
NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER LORD PRESIDENT OF THE 
COUNCIL ESTABLISHED IN THE MARCHES OF WALES SONNE 
AND HEYRE OF THE AFORE NAMED SyR WlLLIAM CAUSED 
THIS TOWER TO BE BUYLDED AND THAT MOST EXCELLENT 
PRINCES ARMS TO BE ERECTED ANNO DOMINO 15S5. 

The royal arms are accordingly emblazoned in stone on 
another tablet beneath. 

Immediately on the right hand of this gateway, as you 
front it, remains a piece of ancient brick front with its ar- 
morial escutcheons, tall octagon brick tower, and cross- 
banded chimneys. The rest, with the exception of the 
stone tower terminating the western end, is all new ; con- 
taining another entrance arch, with the family arms em- 
blazoned above it, and which, with its Elizabethan win- 
dows, corbels, and shields, is in excellent keeping with the 
old portion. 

From the eastern end of this front runs a fine avenue of 
limes, and at a short distance in the park is Gamage's 
Bower, now a mere woody copse, as represented by Ben 
Jonson. 

In the centre of the inner court stands the old Banquet- 
ing Hall, a tall gabled building with high red roof, sur- 
mounted with the ruins of a cupola, erected upon it by 
Mr. Perry, who married the heiress of the family, but who 
does not seem to have brought much taste into it. On the 
point of each gable is an old stone figure — the one a tor- 
toise, the other a lion couchant ; — and upon the back of 
each of these old figures, so completely accordant with the 
building itself, which exhibits under its eaves and at the 
corners of its windows numbers of these grotesque corbels 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 2 9 

which distinguish our buildings of an early date, both do- 
mestic and ecclesiastical, good Mr. Perry clapped a huge 
leaden vase which had probably crowned aforetime the 
pillars of a gateway, or the roof of a garden-house. It 
is to be hoped that Lord de L'Isle will not long delay his 
intention of having these monstrosities pitched from their 
undeserved elevation.* 

With these exceptions, this hall, of which I shall have 
more to say anon, bears externally every mark of a very 
ancient building. 

The south side of the house has all the irregularity of an 
old castle, consisting of various towers, projections, but- 
tresses, and gables. Some of the windows show tracery of 
a superior order, and others have huge common sashes, in- 
troduced by the tasteful Mr. Perry aforesaid. The court 
on this side is surrounded by battlemented walls, and has a 
massy square gatehouse, leading into the old garden, or 
pleasaunce, which sloped away down towards the Medway, 
but is now merely a grassy lawn, with the remains of one 
fine terrace running along its western side. 

In this court, opposite the door of the Banqueting Hall, 
hangs a large bell, on a very simple frame of wood. The 
whole has a genuine look of the ancient time when hunters 
came hungry from the forest, and needed no gilded belfry 
to summon them to dinner. On the bell is inscribed in 
raised letters : 

Robert Earl of Leicester, at Penshurst, 1649. 

The old banqueting hall is a noble specimen of the baronial 
hall of the reign of Edward III., when both house and table 
exhibited the rudeness of a martial age, and both gentle and 

* Since the above was written the cupola and vases have been re- 
moved. 

3* 



30 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

simple revelled together, parted only by the salt. The floor 
is of brick. The raised platform, or dais, at the west-end, 
advances sixteen feet into the room. The width of the hall 
is about forty feet, and the length of it about fifty-four feet. 
On each side are tall gothic windows, much of the tracery 
of which has been some time knocked out, and the openings 
plastered up. At the east-end is a fine large window, with 
two smaller ones above it j but the large window is, for the 
most part, hidden by the front of the music gallery. In the 
centre of the floor an octagon space is marked out with a 
rim of stone, and within this space stands a massy old dog, 
or brand-iron, about a yard and half wide, and the two up- 
right ends three feet six inches high, having on their outer 
sides, near the top, the double broad arrow of the Sydney 
arms. The smoke from the ftre, which was laid on this 
jolly dog, ascended and passed out through the centre of 
the roof, which is high, and of framed oak, and was adorned 
at the spring of the huge groined spars with grotesque pro- 
jecting carved figures, or corbels, which are now taken 
down, being considered in danger of falling, and are laid in 
the music gallery . 

The whole of this fine old roof is, indeed, in a very de- 
cayed state, and unless repaired and made proof against the 
weather, must, ere many winters be over, come down ; a 
circumstance extremely to be regretted, being said to be the 
oldest specimen of our ancient banqueting hall remaining. 

The massy oak tables remain. That on the dais, or the 
lord's table, is six yards long, and about one wide ; and at 
this simple board no doubt Sir Philip and Algernon Sidney, 
the Countess of Pembroke, Saccharissa, Waller, Ben Jonson, 
and though last mentioned, many a noble, and some crowned 
heads, have many a time dined. What a splendid group, 
indeed, may imagination summon up and set down at this 
rude table, where unquestionable history will warrant us 
in placing them. At one time the gentle and pious Edward 



VISIT TQ PENSHUEST. 31 

VI. ; at another his mare domineering and shrewd sister 
Elizabeth, with her proud favourite, Leicester or Essex, 
Cecil or Warwick, all allied to, or in habits of intimacy with, 
the lord of the house. James the First, and Charles, then 
prince, no doubt took their seats here, at that unlooked-for 
visit of which Ben Jonson speaks ; and the paintings in the 
gallery, and rooms above, will show us many a high-born 
beauty, and celebrated noble and gentleman who have 
graced this old hall with their presence, and made its rafters 
echo to their wit and merriment. 

The tables down the sides of the hall, at which the yeo- 
men retainers and servants sate, are seven yards long, and 
of a construction several degrees less in remove from the 
common trestle. 

At the lower end of the hall is a tall wainscot screen sup- 
porting the music gallery, the plainness and even rudeness 
of its fashion marking the earliness of its date. The space 
betwixt it and the end of the hall, forms a passage from one 
court to the other, and serves also to conceal the entrances 
to the kitchen, larder, and other similar offices. 

Most of the wainscot and doors of this part of the house 
are of split oak, never touched with a plane, but reduced 
to their proper dimensions only by the chisel and the hatchet; 
sufficient proof of their antiquity. The arched passages 
and doorways from the courts to the hail are nevertheless 
of excellent style and workmanship. 

At the back of the music-gallery, and up to the very top 
of the hall, hang shields, matchlocks with their rests, steel 
caps, banners, and different pieces of armour ; but much the 
greater portion of those trophies has fallen down, and they 
lie in the music-gallery, or some of the disused rooms. 

On each side of the dais, as in our old colleges, ascends a 
flight of loo stairs ; one leading to the old apartments of the 
house, the other into a sort of little gallery, out of which the 
lord could look into the hall, and call his wassailers to order 



32 VISIT TO PENSHUKST. 

if any unusual clamour or riot was going on, or to call any 
of his retainers, bells not then being introduced. 

On the right hand of the dais, is the entrance into the 
cellar ; an odd situation to our present fancy, but then, no 
doubt, thought very convenient for the butler to bring up 
the wine to the lord's table. Passing this cellar door to the 
right of the dais, and ascending the loo stairs, you find your- 
self in the ball-room : a large room, with two ancient lustre 
chandeliers surmounted with the crown-royal, and said to 
have been the first made in England, and presented by 
Elizabeth to the Earl of Leicester. In this room are several 
columns of verde-antique, giallo, and porphyry from Italy ; 
antique burial-urns, and old tables of mosaic marble. There 
are four large frescoes by Vanderbrecht : — The Triumph 
of Cupid ; Venus rising from the Sea ; Europa on the Bull ; 
and Cupid trying his Bow. Amongst some indifferent portraits 
is one of Lady E. Sidney, and another of Lady Egerton. 

In the pages' room are numerous paintings. Amongst 
them are the Duke of St. Albans, Nell Gwynn's son, a boy 
of about eight or ten years of age, in a rich murrey-coloured 
doublet and breeches, with roses at his knees and on his 
shoes ; an excellent painting. Head of John Dudley Duke 
of Northumberland, 1545 : the father of Lord Guildford 
Dudley ; of the Earls of Warwick and Leicester ; and of 
Mary Dudley, the mother of Sir Philip Sidney. Head of 
the Duchess of Portsmouth : small full-length of Algernon 
Percy Earl of Northumberland : the Egerton family, three 
children : head of old Parr, who died at the age of one hun- 
dred and fifty-two : Catherine Cecil, Countess of Leicester, 
of whom there are several other portraits in the house : head 
of Algernon Sidney, in a defective state : Duns Scotus : sup- 
posed portrait of General Leslie. 

There is a small recumbent statue of Cleopatra from 
Herculaneum, here ; and the bridle of the Duke of Buck- 
ingham, the favourite of James I., hangs by one of the win- 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 33 

dows. The front, martingal, and the bosses of the bits, 
gilt and much ornamented. 

Queen Elizabeth's room. — It is said that Elizabeth, 
when visiting Sir Henry Sidney, the father of Sir Philip, 
furnished this room. The chairs are fine, tall, and capa- 
cious ones, the frames gilded, and the drapery yellow and 
crimson satin, richly embroidered. They must have been 
very splendid when in their full glory. The walls of each 
end of the room are covered with similar embroidered satin, 
said, as in all such cases, to have been worked by the queen 
and her attendants. 

Here stand the three most interesting portraits in the 
house. Those of Sir Philip, Algernon, and Mary Sidney, 
the Countess of Pembroke. 

Sir Philip Sidney is here apparently not more than two 
or three and twenty years of age. His dress is a rich laced 
doublet of pale crimson ; ruff, and scarlet mantle hanging 
loosely from his shoulder. He is standing reading, with a 
staff of office in his hand, and with his armour about him. 
It is a lively portrait, very much resembling that belonging 
to the Duke of Bedford, from which Lodge's engraving is 
taken ; and also that in Warwick Castle ; but of a younger 
aspect than either. It perhaps does not come up to your 
idea of the knightly beauty and grace of Sir Philip Sidney ; 
for few indeed of the portraits of the great men of that won- 
derful era do realize your conceptions of them ; but it has 
all the truth and light-heartedness of youth about it, and 
breathes of that high-minded nobility and generous enthu- 
siasm for whatever was heroic and just, which distinguished 
him. You cannot look long on the high forehead, clear 
earnest eyes, and smooth features, without feeling that they 
belonged to the youthful poet, and gallant and unselfish 
hero. His hair is cut short behind, and turned aside from 
his forehead, and what is perhaps most unlooked for, its 
colour is of a ruddy brown. It is not red hair of the com- 



34 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

mon hue, nor chestnut, but a dusky red, or ruddy brown, 
and which is proved by a circumstance to which I shall 
soon advert, to have really been the colour of Sir Philip's 
hair. His complexion is also that of a person who has a 
tinge of the red in his hair. The same tinge is visible in 
the hair of many of the Sidneys, both as seen in their por- 
traits and in locks which are preserved. 

Lodge's portrait of the Countess of Pembroke is a very 
good transcript. 

Algernon Sidney is also here represented as we see him in 
the engravings ; — standing by a column, leaning on a folio 
book labelled. libertas. He is in a buff coat embroidered, 
a scarlet sash, and steel cuirass. The tower where he was 
beheaded is in view, and the axe of the executioner behind. 
His long dark-brown hair is combed over his shoulders ; 
his nose is Roman ; and the expression of the whole coun- 
tenance stern and melancholy. From the emblems of his 
fate about him, it is evident that this painting was done 
after his death. The original likeness is in the gallery. 

Near these is Lord Lisle, the son of Lady Egerton, by 
Lely : Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, the husband of 
Saccharissa : Col. Thomas Sidney, his wife and child, the 
father and mother of Mrs. Perry, the grandmother of Sir 
John Shelley Sidney. The Earl of Leicester, 1618 ; Robert, 
Earl of Leicester, 1632, by Vandyke : Philip, Lord Lisle, 
Earl of Leicester, 1678 : his mother, again, Lady Elizabeth 
Sidney (a Bridgewater Egerton) : and the present -Lord de 
L'Isle. Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Lei- 
cester, by Gerard : Ambrose Dudley, his brother, Earl of 
Warwick; Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by Vandyke. A 
large family-piece — Barbara Gamage, Countess of Leices- 
ter, 1596, and her six children, all in the formal dress of the 
time. In this room are various other family portraits, and 
George III. and Queen Charlotte, by Gainsborough. There 
is a sleeping Venus, by Titian j a Charity, by Guido ; and 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 35 

perhaps, as a painting, the most attractive piece of all is 
a Vandyke, Philip Lord Lisle — a boy with his dog, and 
his hunting-pole upon his shoulder. He has on an em- 
broidered scarf and buskins, richly worked with gold. He 
appears to be advancing through a wood, and his attention 
is arrested by something in the trees before him. The 
whole figure is full of youthful buoyancy, and the counte- 
nance of grace and nature. 

Tapestry Room. — Full lengths of William and Mary ; 
William IV., by Sir Thomas Lawrence 5 Edward VI., by 
Holbein, an excellent portrait : Sir Henry Sidney, the pre- 
sident, in a black velvet cap and robe ; a portrait in keeping 
with his character as a high-minded gentleman. 

The most curious painting in this room is however, per- 
haps, one containing the portraits of the two celebrated sis- 
ters, Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, and Lady 
Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle. These ladies, daughters 
of the Duke of Northumberland, so well known in their 
own day, are well known too by their portraits in Lodge. 
Here they are given together, and the variation of their 
characters is obvious in their persons. The Countess of 
Leicester is a woman of that bold beauty which answers 
to what we know of her ; a woman who seemed born to 
command and to be admired. She had quick passions and 
a strong will, but she knew both her own nature, and was 
quick to see that of all who came about her. She had great 
self-command, and could fascinate, or repel by a cool air of 
dignity, at her pleasure. Her husband has left us, in his 
letters, a very touching account of her death-bed farewell of 
him. She was the mother of Algernon Sidney, and looking 
on her fine, but firm, and high-spirited face, we recognise 
at once the source of his lofty and unbending qualities. 

The Countess of Carlisle was a woman of similar charac- 
ter in many points, but more devoted to political intrigue. 
" Lady Carlisle," says Miss Aikin in her Memoirs of the 



36 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

Reign of Charles I., " was a distinguished beauty, wit, and 
political intriguer, nor is her memory free from the suspicion, 
at least, of gallantry ; no court lady of her time was equally 
celebrated or conspicuous. She was flattered in French by 
Voiture, and in her native tongue by almost all the contem- 
porary wits and poets, and more especially by Waller in 
verse, and in prose by that singular and mysterious person 
Sir Toby Matthew ; who composed an elaborate character 
of her, which is sufficiently hyperbolical to wear some ap- 
pearance of irony, especially in the eulogium which he 
seems to bestow upon that arrogant scorn with which it 
was her practice to treat persons of every rank. . . . She 
was early appointed to a high office in the household of the 
queen; and notwithstanding occasional quarrels, such as 
could scarcely fail to arise between two ladies so distin- 
guished for high spirit, she long enjoyed and singularly 
abused the favour and confidence of Henrietta." Went- 
worth is supposed at one period to have stood high in her 
good graces, and even Laud paid homage at her shrine. 

Here are besides, heads of William and Mary: Nell 
Gwynn, by Lely, as a Venus lying on a couch with a child 
standing by her ; a strange picture, but beautifully executed. 
Some family pictures ; a sea-piece, by John Tennant, a 
fisherman looking out with a spying-glass : a curious old 
piece a music party : a head of a female, by Giorgione, 
full of strong character ; and St. Peter delivered out of 
Prison, by Steenwick. There are on the walls two large 
pieces of Gobelin tapestry ; Eolus unbarring the winds ; 
and the triumph of Ceres. A card table stands here, given 
by Queen Elizabeth, the middle of which is covered with 
needlework, embroidery of the very kind now so much 
worked by our young ladies. 

Picture Closet. — Algernon Percy as high-admiral of 
England : Titian's mistress, by himself; a soft, fattish wo- 
man with yellow hair, but beautifully painted : Madonna 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 37 

and sleeping Christ, by Guido ; the face of the Madonna 
full of expression, and the light thrown upon it with fine 
effect : head of a saint, by Giorgione, in a praying attitude 
with clasped hands, the colour of the flesh is of a rich deep 
yellow, as if the saint were the inhabitant of a sultry country: 
a Crucifixion : Bandits, by Spagnoletto ; and various small 
pieces by good masters. 

The Gallery. — AFlemish Woman, by Peter Thoue, 1560, 
with fruit, very good : a curious old piece, a Madonna and 
Child, probably brought from some ancient shrine : full- 
length of Lady Mary Dudley, wife of Sir Henry, and mo- 
ther of Sir Philip Sidney, with a guitar, and in a rich em- 
broidered gown of Elizabethan ruff, her hair frizzled close 
to her head : the original portrait of Algernon Sidney, by 
Verres : Languet, Sir Philip Sidney's friend : Bacchanals, 
by N. Poussin : piece on marble, a Woman with her Distaff, 
and a Shepherd playing on his pipe, with sheep and cattle 
about : James Stuart, Duke of Richmond, by Vandyke : 
Dying Mother, probably copied from Murillo : Abraham 
offering up Isaac, a large piece, by Guercino da Cento : a 
Procession, by Rubens, evidently a piece full of life and 
grace from what little can be seen of the figures, but nearly 
invisible from want of cleaning : Telemachus in the island 
of Calypso. 

Dorothea, Countess of Sunderland, by Hoskins, that is, 
Saccharissa after her marriage : on the other side of the 
gallery is Saccharissa before her marriage — Dorothea 
Sidney, by Vandyke. She is represented as a shepherdess 
in a straw hat, the brim of which is lined with blue satin, 
her hair is disposed in ringlets on each side of the face, 
leaving the crown of the head smooth and round in the 
favourite fashion of the time. Like that of the Sidneys in 
general, it has a ruddy, or, in her case, rather golden tinge. 
For beauty, the portrait of Hoskins, done after her marriage, 
has the highest claim : but though there is great softness of 

4 



38 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

figure and complexion about this lady, we are led by the 
praises of Waller, to look for more striking charms than we 
immediately perceive in Saccharissa. As in Sir Philip 
Sidney, so in this celebrated female of his race, there were 
undoubtedly those fascinations of manner and spirit, which, 
though visible to all beholders, have escaped the hand of 
the painter. 

Virgin, Child, and St. John, said to be a copy from 
Rafaelle, but admirably painted. Joseph's wrinkled face, 
full of admiring devotion, and the brunette beauty of Mary, 
are equally excellent ; the dark eye and rich lips of the 
Madonna, are full of maternal satisfaction, and deep holy 
joy : Maleager and Atalanta, a large piece, indistinct from 
want of cleaning : the scourging of Christ, by Spagnoletto, 
the same : Holy Family, by Bassano, the same : a boy's 
head, by Caracci : Christ crowned with thorns, a large 
piece, of great merit, but artist not named : a very large 
family-piece of the Perrys, including the wife of Bysshe 
Shelley, and mother of Sir John Shelley Sidney : head of 
Thomas, Earl of Surrey : Ann Percy, Lady Stanhope, by 
Netscher : Bacchanals, by N. Poussin : Endymion, by 
Bartolomeo : a modern country coquette, by Wyatt : Abbot, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, a curious old piece : Thomas 
Wentworth, constable of Queenborough Castle in the first 
of Richard III. : a drunken gondolier, by Rubens : Apollo 
and the Muses, after Vandyke. In this part of the gallery 
stands an ebony cabinet, with small brass figures in little 
niches and paintings on the panels, which was given by 
James I. to the first Earl of Leicester. 

Head of William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, a very 
old man : Sir William Sidney, to whom Penshurst was 
given by Edward VI., by Lucas de Heer : Madonna and 
Christ, by Andrea del Sarto. The most curious piece in the 
gallery, and indeed in the house, is one of Sir Philip 
Sidney, and his brother Robert, afterwards first Earl of 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 39 

Leicester of this line. Sir Philip, a youth of perhaps sixteen, 
is standing arm in arm with Robert, a boy of about thirteen 
or fourteen. They are in a court dress, both exactly alike, 
a sort of doublet and collar. The collar is just the boy's 
collar of the present day, except that it is fringed with lace. 
The doublet is buttoned down the front with close set 
buttons, it is fitted exactly to the body with very close 
sleeves, and turned up with lace cuffs. The colour of the 
doublet is French grey. They have trunk-hose, very full 
indeed, of crimson figured satin, stockings and garters of the 
same colour as the doublet, with roses at the knees, and on 
the shoes. Their shoes are of leather, with tan-coloured 
soles, and are cut high in the instep ; having much the look 
of listing shoes of the present day : their swords complete 
their costume. Their hair is cut short behind and turned 
aside on the forehead. There is a hat of white beaver 
lying on a table close to the elbow of Sir Philip, with a stiff 
upright plume of ostrich feathers with edges dyed crimson. 

The lads have a strong likeness as brothers, and bear the 
same likeness to the portrait of Sir Philip in Queen Eliza- 
beth's room. Philip has something of an elder-brother, 
patronizing air, and is full of a frank, ardent spirit, such as 
we may imagine marked the boyhood of such a man. 
When we recollect, too, the strong affection he always 
showed to this brother, we see plainly that the union of the 
two in one picture was rather the result of that known 
affection, than the act of the painter. This curious family 
and national picture bears about it every mark of its 
authenticity, and has never yet been engraved. 

Amongst the remaining pictures, are — Philip, the fifth 
Earl of Leicester, by Kneller : Elizabeth, daughter of Col. 
Sidney, and wife of W. Perry, Esq., the same lady who 
figures in the large Perry family-piece just mentioned : 
Robert, Earl of Leicester, 1702, by Sir P. Lely : Elizabeth 
Egerton, Lady Leicester again, with a child, afterwards 
Lord Lisle, both by Lely: another Lady Leicester, a very 



40 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

fine, fair woman, with a profusion of brown hair : Christ at 
Emmaus, a large and good piece, by Jan Steen : Jane 
Wroth, Countess of Rochford, said to be by Netscher, quere 
by Lely ? a fine woman, in Lely's style, with dark hair, 
hazel eyes, and large oval face, with an air of aristocratic 
dignity : Madonna and Child, by Leonardo da Vinci : 
portrait of a pian, by Holbein, most capital and life-like : 
heads of Christ and Madonna, from the collection of Charles 
I., by Simon Mercati : rich man and Lazarus, by Bassan : 
several small family-pieces on copper, by Verelst : Flemish 
women, by Terburgh, excellent : Sir Thomas More, by 
Holbein : St. Lucia holding her eyes in a vase : the Flood, 
by Bassan : Holy Family, by Annibal Carracci : Barbara 
Gamage, first Countess of Leicester : Venus reclining, by 
Titian : head of a monk, by Perino del Vaga, with strong 
black hair, and features that would suit the Clerk of 
Copmanhurst : carving on wood, a saint at prayer, very 
excellent : Venus attired by the Graces, copied from Gui- 
do, by Lely : portrait of a lady, a lovely fair woman : 
martyrdom of St. Sabastian, a large piece, that wants 
cleaning : a small head of Martin Luther. 

Such are the names of the greater number of the paintings 
at Penshurst. There are a good many, both family por- 
traits and other paintings, by good masters, which are not, 
however, here mentioned ; some few, too, were gone to be 
cleaned. I have desired to enumerate the majority, that 
persons of taste may be more aware, than has been the 
case, of the treasures of art hoarded in this venerable old 
house of the Sidneys : to attempt to discuss their respective 
merits is beyond the limits of this article ; but it may be an 
additional inducement to those who would wish to visit 
Penshurst, from their reverence for those of its former in- 
habitants, who have done and suffered so much for the 
literature and the liberties of England, to know that they 
will not merely tread the same ground, and gaze on the 
same scenes as these patriots and heroes, but that these 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 41 

noble spirits have themselves collected for their recreation, 
works of art which would make the spot one of strong at- 
traction, even if it were not hallowed by their memories, 
and embellished by all that remains of their presence — their 
pictured forms. 

Few, I suspect, are aware how easy of access this in- 
teresting place is from the metropolis. In about three hours, 
and for a few shillings, a coach three times a week will set 
you down at an excellent inn on the very spot. From Tun- 
bridge Wells, a few miles distant, this is now a favourite 
excursion, and the Dover Railway will, ere long, run through 
the vale of Tunbridge, so that we feel assured that Pens- 
hurst, standing as it does, in one of the most lovely districts 
of England, will be resorted to by a great multitude of our 
countrymen. 

At present, it is true, this interesting collection of paint- 
ings is in a state of much confusion. Both they and the 
building have evidently suffered seriously, not merely from 
time, but from neglect. In the great national changes, 
which since the days of the First Charles have passed over 
England, the great families and their houses have neces- 
sarily undergone ruinous changes too. Many such houses, 
at this moment, stand roofless and ivy-grown, never again 
to be restored. Others have only been recovered by the 
outlay of princely fortunes; and others still, though inhabited 
by the descendants of their ancient lords, bear about them, 
and will to the last, the marks of the scath and ravages 
which they have suffered. Penshurst is one of these ; and 
no one who treads its silent park, and beholds its huge trees 
shattered by the tempests, — its grass-grown pleasaunce and 
its gray walls, — but will feel that it derives a stronger in- 
terest from these circumstances. It is not in a scene of 
entire modern gaiety and splendour that we would wish to 
come upon the domestic haunts of the Sidneys. Such a 
scene would violate all our ideas of the past, and disturb 

4* 



42 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

those feelings which drew us to the spot. We know that 
the days of the Arcadia are gone by ; we know that Sir 
Philip Sidney died young on the field of Zutphen, and 
Algernon's blood flowed on the scaffold for the love of civil 
liberty ; and a place which bears on its face evidence of a 
kindred fate, is just that which accords with our humour at 
the moment, and deepens our impressions of the past. We 
do not expect to meet Ben Jonson strolling through the 
park; or Waller and Saccharissa bandying compliments 
beneath the noble beeches, now called Saccharissa's Walk ; 
much less do we expect to find Sir Philip pacing the broad 
terrace of the garden, with his admired sister Pembroke, 
and Edmund Spenser, deep in dreams of chivalry and poe- 
try, which no sound of steam-engines, nor bruit of reform 
and registrations, nor arrival of morning paper, in those 
days disturbed. All these things are of the past, and of the 
fashion of the past which can never be revived, and we love 
the spot which makes us feel it. 

Nothing, therefore, is more delightful than to see the care 
which, in restoring this fine old fabric, has been taken by 
its noble possessor, to preserve as much of its anquity as 
possible, and to build in the spirit of it. Lord de L'Isle is 
a worthy descendant of the House of Sidney, and seems 
fully conscious of the honour of such ancestry ; it is there- 
fore to be hoped, that in the course of improvement and 
restoration, a great deal will be done which yet needs it. 
I have already expressed the hope that the roof of the old 
banqueting hall will be repaired, and the hall thus be pre- 
served to future generations, which, without speedy atten- 
tion, will not outlast this. 

It will be a worthy labour too, both as it regards the 
public and the works themselves, to have the paintings 
thoroughly cleaned, and disposed to best advantage. The 
family portraits should be arranged in chronological order ; 
and when it is considered that the whole family is, with 
scarcely an exception, complete, it may be imagined how 



VISIT TO PENSHUKST. 43 

much the interest of the whole will be increased. When 
this is done, it will be difficult to call to mind a suite of 
ancient apartments, commencing with the old hall and ter- 
minating with the gallery, that will more completely trans- 
port the spectator into the stirring times of Elizabeth and 
the Commonwealth. 

But there are other relics of the family at Penshurst. 
There are the MSS. In a cabinet, in one of the front 
rooms, is preserved a considerable collection of these. 
Some of their contents have been published, particularly 
those of a more political nature, in Collins's two volumes of 
the Sidney Papers. Mr. Blencowe has also published, in 
another volume, under the same name, the Journal of 
Robert, Earl of Leicester, father of Algernon, who spent 
the troublous times of the civil wars and commonwealth 
here, and regularly entered down the passing events. We 
have also, in the same volume, some letters of Algernon to 
his father and others, all bearing the impress of the same 
high and unbending spirit, perhaps the most perfect image 
of Roman virtue that any modern state has produced. Yet 
I have no doubt that a steady inquest through those papers 
would discover much matter that would interest the general 
reader. It is not within the scope of such a work as this 
that such materials could be comprehended. I can only in- 
dicate their existence. It may, however, give some idea of 
what might be found, to mention one or two things that 
my eye casually fell upon. One was a MS. with this title — 

An. Dom. 1583. 

Inventory of Household Furniture, etc. at Kenil- 

worth Castle, belonging to Robert Dudley, 

Earl of Leycester. 

An. Dom. 1583. 



44 VISIT TO PENSHUEST. 

What a volume this would have been for Sir Walter 
Scott when writing his romance of Kenilworth ! Here we 
have a thorough and particular account of the whole fur- 
nishing and household array of Kenilworth, at the very time 
at which Leicester gave his entertainment to the Queen. 
There is every article in the house from roof to cellar, and 
from the lady's bower to the stable. With this MS. before 
him, Sir Walter might have given us a portraiture of Kenil- 
worth, not only as graphic as was his wont, but as true as 
if he had been at the entertainment himself. As it is, it is 
a most valuable exposition of the real state and fashion of 
a princely house in the reign of Elizabeth. 

There are also two volumes of the Household Book of 
the Sidneys remaining. They are those of Algernon Sid- 
ney's father, and are thus entitled — 

1624. 
Household Expenses of the Right Honourable Lo. vicont 
Lisle, at London and Pencehurst,* from the xiii of 
Aprill unto xxi of March. 

Expenses 
In Kitchens, Larders, Buttrie, Sellers, Brewhouse, Laun- 
dreys, Stables, fewell, and in other places, as here- 
after may appeare. 



In this book, as in the Household Book of the Percys, 
which has been published, there is a most exact and well- 
kept account of all expenses throughout the entire establish- 
ment. Of the methodical and business habits of our great 
families in the days of tilting and court revelry, nothing can 

* Still pronounced thus by the people thereabouts, evidently from the 
original name, Pencester. 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 45 

give more ample proof. Everything is entered, and every- 
thing is valued. The accounts are not only clear and 
minute, but they are set down in the most leisurely and 
precise hand. Such accounts were, no doubt, of the greatest 
value in their own day, and to us they are not a whit the 
less so. They are standing evidences, not only of what was 
the consumption of a great house, and what were the kind 
of articles used, but they give us the value of every article 
of life at this period, and become data for any calculation 
of the change of value in money and goods between that 
day and this. We have meat, flour, eggs, fish, fowls, 
turkeys, pigs, wheat, oats, hay, brushes, mops, cloths, etc., 
etc., all in their separate identity. There is no lumping 
them in sundries. You see too what was the peculiar style 
of serving the several tables kept in the house, for the old 
days of all dining in hall were over ; there were, therefore, 
separate entries for every day and every room where a 
table was set. There was the lord's table ; the table in the 
hall, probably for the steward, yeomen, and retainers ; the 
kitchen for the kitchen servants; the nursery; and Alger- 
non's room. 

We find continual entries in 1625, " for Algernone," of 
puddings, birds, mutton, etc. If Algernon was born in 1622, 
as it has been asserted, he would now only be three years 
old, and would be in the nursery; but if in 1617, as is 
more probable, he would be eight, and thus at a more suit- 
able age to be advanced to the dignity of a separate table. 
Whatever be the fact, these, however, and such, are the 
entries. 

We find also that one day there is veal in the kitchen, 
mutton in the hall, and a capon in the nursery ; the same 
general dishes seldom appearing at the different tables on 
the same day. Lord de L'Isle's eldest daughter, a fine 
lively girl of eleven, hearing us mention the nursery, was 
curious to know what the children of the family had two 



46 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

hundred years ago, and was amused to find that it was just 
what they themselves had had that day — a fowl. 

In these books are duly entered the names of all the 
guests, so that by looking through them we can tell who 
were the visitants and associates of the family for those 
years. Many of these entries are very curious, as they re- 
gularly note how many attendants the guests brought, and 
how long they stayed. We may give a few samples, which 
are sufficiently indicative of the whole. Thus — - 

1624 — Monday, 14th March. — At dinner, Lo. Percie and 

La. Percie ; La. Carlisle ; La. Maners ; Sir Henry 
Lea ; Mrs. Coulston. 

At supper, Lord Percie, Ladie Delawar, and remain- 
ing a week. 

Wednesday 16th, Lo. and La. went to Syon. 

1625 — 12th of November. — Breakfast for La. Percie and 

La. Carlisle, and people going away. 
Soon after occurs — Ladie Carlisle, with ten attend- 
ants, who staid fourteen days. 

— Lord Wallingford ; Lord Vauze ; Sir Thos. Ne- 
ville ; Sir Antho. Forester ; Lord Arundell ; Sir 
Francis Smith ; and their attendants after dinner. 

— Thirty neighbours at dinner. 

1625 — 30th December. — Sir Geo. and John Ryvers, and 
their La. ; Mr. Geo. Ryvers ; Justice Dixon ; Jus- 
tice Selliard and his brethren ; and Lord Crucken- 
don ; Anthony Cambridge ; and about thirty others 
at dinner. 
Prices of expenses for this weeke. — Kitchen, for 
flesh, fish, poultrie, butter, eggs, groceries, 291. 17s. 
lOd. ; Pantry and eller, in bread, beere, sack, cla- 
ret, etc. 14/. 13s. lOd. ; Brewhouse Laundrie, 

soape and starge, Is. lid.; Stables, for hay and 
oats, 1/. 145. 8d. ; Fewell, in charcoal and billets, 
31. 9s. 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 47 

This, it must be confessed, was jovial house-keeping, 
amounting to about 50/. for the week, or 2500/. the year, 
for mere eating and drinking, when a good pig was worth 
Is. 8d. ; and everything in proportion. 

These are striking testimonials to the truth of Ben Jon- 
son's description in the poem already quoted, of the liberal 
and ungrudging hospitality of the Sidneys. Towards the 
alleviation of this cost we find continual entries of gifts from 
friends and tenants, — another fact also mentioned by Ben 
Jonson : 

All come in, the farmer and the clowne, 
And no one empty handed. 

The singularity of the entry is, that even these gifts have a 
value attached to them, as thus, in 1625 : — Gifts to the Lo. 
of Leycester : from the Earl of Dorset, 1 stag, 2/. — from 
Goodman Edmunds, 1 pig, Is. 8d. 

There were also " Provision Rents," or rents which pro- 
bably small tenants paid in kind, which came pouring in 
weekly, and must have proved very comfortable apparitions 
to the cook, when lords and ladies, with their troops of at- 
tendants, rode clattering into court. These provision rents 
are also regularly entered, and consisted of all kinds of 
country produce, — bacon, fowls, turkeys, geese, mutton, 
pigs — fat and sucking, fruits, corn, cheese, butter, and such 
good things. 

Besides these household books, and the volumes of his- 
torical journals, political and literary, already mentioned, 
there are some relating entirely to family affairs, which 
must be very curious. I observed a sort of summary of 
the historical reading of one of the earls, and a " Catalogue 
of the Officers in the army of the Netherlands." This was 
probably made by Robert Sidney, Sir Philip's brother, who 
served in that army for some time. I opened, too, " An 



48 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

account of the Ceremonials at the Courts of Princes/' 
evidently being a sort of guide-book of one of the family 
while on foreign embassage ; probably that of the second 
earl, whose journal is published, and who was ambassador 
to France in the early part of Charles I.'s reign ; with others 
which in the same manner indicate the countries and em- 
ployments in which the writers or transcribers were engaged. 
There is one entitled, " The Meditations of the Countess of 
Bridgewater on eight chapters of Scripture." This was, 
no doubt, brought here by her daughter, Lady Elizabeth 
Egerton, the fourth Countess of Leicester. 

These are all interesting peeps into the lives and charac- 
ters of the various members of an ancient line, of some of 
whom no other memorial remains except the portrait on the 
wall. What can be more delightful than for the descendant 
of an old house to be able thus to unveil and make acquaint- 
ance with the thoughts and domestic feelings of his buried 
ancestors? We must not, however, leave this cabinet 
without noticing another article of its contents. 

Of most of the distinguished personages of this family, a 
lock of hair has been carefully preserved, and they are here 
kept in little boxes. They have been severed from the head 
at various ages of the individual. Some have the infantine 
lightness of hue and silkiness of texture, and some are 
blanched with age. It was, however, a great pleasure to me 
to see locks of the hair of Sir Philip and Algernon, cut in 
the strength of their manhood, for they so exactly agreed, 
both in character and colour with that of their portraits in 
the house, as to give one the most satisfactory idea of the 
scrupulous fidelity of the painters. 

We must here close our visit to Penshurst ; only adding, 
that in the church which stands near the house, are to be 
found monuments of the Sidneys. The remains of Sir 
Philip lie in St. Paul's Cathedral. It may be interesting 
too, to lovers of our history, to know that in the present 



VISIT TO PENSHURST. 49 

parsonage, now inhabited by the Rev. Philip Dodd and his 
daughter, once dwelt Dr. Hammond, one of the chaplains 
of Charles I., and author of various works of a polemic or 
religious nature. In fact, the church, the parsonage, the 
rustic churchyard — which is entered by an old-fashioned 
gateway through the very middle of a house, and has some 
of its graves planted with shrubs and flowers in the manner 
which John Evelyn says was common in his time in Surrey, 
the village, and the old mansion itself, are all so pleasantly 
grouped on their gentle eminence, and surrounded by so 
delightful a country, that were there no other cause of at- 
traction, it would be difficult to point out a spot where the 
lovers of a rural excursion, and a social party, could spend 
a day more to their heart's desire. Who then would not 
the more love to visit this spot for the recollections that cling 
to it? 

Are days of old familiar to thy mind, 

O reader 1 Hast thou let the midnight hour 

Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived 

With high-born beauties and enamoured chiefs, 

Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy 

Whose expectation touched the verge of pain, 

Following their dangerous fortunes 1 If such love 

Hath ever thrilled thy bosom, thou wilt tread, 

As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts, 

The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born. 

Southey. 

Yes, in these scenes you seem to make human acquaintance, 
even though ages and death and decay are between you, 
with spirits that were before unto you merely after the 
fashion of Ariel, — coming, indeed, at your call, from the 
fairy -land of books, and singing to you unearthly melodies, 
but having no local habitation. Here you have before you 
the traces and evidences of their humanity. Here you see 

5 



50 VISIT TO PENSHURST. 

Sir Philip Sidney, as the boy and the man ; you walk under 
his oak ; you tread with Ben Jonson beneath the mighty 
chestnuts still crowning the hills of the park ; you pace 
under the stupendous beeches of Saccharissa's Walk, now 
battered with time and tempests ; you see Algernon Sidney, 
not merely as the stern patriot, planning the overthrow of 
monarchy, but as the delicate child of a stately line daintily 
fed in his separate chamber ; you recognise the Fair Pem- 
broke as a daughter of this house ; and everywhere tokens 
of the visits and favour of Edward VI., of Elizabeth, and 
James, bring us back in spirit to those remarkable reigns. 
Numbers of portraits of those who figured most eminently 
on the political stage then, complete the impression ; and 
we cannot bid adieu to the venerable pile of Penshurst with- 
out feeling that it has not merely afforded us a deep satis- 
faction, but has stimulated us to a closer acquaintance with 
some of the proudest characters and most eventful times 
of English history. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

There are few things more interesting than a visit to an 
old battle-field. The very circumstance impresses indelibly 
on your mind the history connected with it. It awakes a 
more lively interest about the deeds done there, than the 
mere meeting with them in a book can. It kindles a curi- 
osity about all the persons and the events that once passed 
over it ; and when you have inquired, the living knowledge 
which you have gained of the place and its localities, fixes 
the facts for ever in your memories. 

Besides that, old traditions linger about the field and its 
vicinity, which in the excitement of the main transaction 
never found their way into the record. There are passages, 
and glimpses of personages, that the historian did not learn, 
or did not deign to place on his page, which have neverthe- 
less a vivid effect on the heart and the imagination of him 
who wanders and muses there in after time. You see, even 
long ages afterwards, evidences of the wrath and ravages of 
the moment of contention, and touching traces of those human 
sufferings, which, though they make the mass of instant 
misery and the most fruitful subject of subsequent reflec- 
tion, are lost in the glare of worldly glory, and the din of 
drums and trumpets. You see where the fierce agency of 
fire and artillery have left marks of their rage — where they 
have shivered rocks and shattered towers, laid waste dwel- 
lings and blown up the massy fortresses of the feudal ages. 
Nature, with all her healing and restoring care, does not 
totally erase or conceal these. There are gray crumbling 



52 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

walls, weed-grown heaps, grassy mounds shrouding vast 
ruins ; and even at times, of the slaughtered hosts, still 

The graves are green ; they may be seen. 

Of the battle-fields in this country, I know none which 
have more interested my imagination than those of Flodden 
and Culloden. Both were peculiarly disastrous to Scotland : 
in one the king was slain with nearly all his nobility, in the 
other the regal hopes of his unfortunate descendants were 
extinguished for ever. These circumstances have made 
them both themes of poetry and romance of the highest 
quality which Scotland has ever produced. No one can 
read the pathetic ballad — 

The flowers of the forest are all wede away, 

without feeling a strong interest in Flodden ; and the vast 
influence which the battle of Culloden has had on the 
fortunes of this country, render the spot on which it was 
fought one of peculiar note to Englishmen. It was there 
that the fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed. It was there 
that it was demonstrated beyond dispute, that any chance 
of that family — so unfortunately attached to principles of 
government and religion which the bulk of the empire 
rejected and abjured, — to regain the throne of these king- 
doms, was gone for ever. It was there that popery and 
regal despotism, as regnant powers in Great Britain, were 
destroyed. It was there that not only was Protestantism 
made triumphant, but that the empire was consolidated far 
more than by the formal Act of Union itself. While the 
Highlands continued the stronghold of Jacobitism, there 
was a weak place in the kingdom which France and Spain 
were only too well acquainted with ; and on any recurrence 
of hostility with them, we were threatened with invasion 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 53 

and insurrection at once. The course of the rebellion of 
1745, which was terminated at Culloden, by showing the 
hoplessness of such attempts, put an end to them. It was 
found that the Highlanders alone, out of the immense popu- 
lation of the realm, could be roused to assert the claims of 
the old dynasty, and the battle of Culloden laid the High- 
lands at the feet of the conquerors, and they were crushed 
into passive obedience. Henceforward all parties, English 
and Scotch, highlanders and lowlanders, have felt so vitally 
the advantages of union ; of one common empire, and one 
common interest ; and such has been the manifest progress 
in wealth, and power, and knowledge, of Britain — sound, 
and whole, and healthy in all its members, and with the 
same political and commercial advantages accessible to 
all its children, that every one must rejoice in the course 
which events have taken. Instead of internal divisions and 
squabbles about the crown, laying her open to attacks from 
without, Britain by her union has advanced to an eminence 
amongst the nations, most glorious in itself, and to a prospect 
of political dominion and moral influence that have no 
parallel, and that are too vast even for the strongest imagi- 
nation to embrace. 

On the other hand, putting out of view these considera- 
tions and consequences, history has few things so striking 
as the transactions that terminated at Culloden. We see 
an ancient dynasty driven from the throne of a splendid 
empire, striving to regain it, and that particular race from 
which it sprang, adhering with inviolable devotion to its 
fortunes ; and ready, in the face of millions, and the vast 
resources of England, to stand to the death for its claims. 
Nothing can be more picturesque and heroic than the 
Highlanders, as seen in this history. Their magnificent 
mountain-land, their peculiar costume, their clanship, their 
whole life and character, so different to those of the rest of 
the empire, all add their effect to that romantic valour which, 

5* 



54 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

on the appearance of Prince Charles, burst forth over the 
vales of England, struck terror into the heart of the metro- 
polis, and then, as suddenly retreating, expired in one 
melancholy blaze on the Field of Culloden. 

It is no wonder that the struggles of the exiled Stuarts, 
and the exploits of the Highlanders, have produced such a 
multitude of Jacobite songs, and such romances as those of 
Scott ; and, as thousands of our countrymen and country- 
women now traverse every summer the very scenes inha- 
bited by these heroic clans, and where the principal events 
of the last rebellion took place, it may be as well, before 
describing the visit to Culloden, to take a hasty glance at 
the events that so fatally terminated there. 

The moment that our summer tourists enter the great 
Caledonian Canal, one of the most magnificent, and now 
one of the most accessible routes which they can take, they 
are in the very cradle of the rebellion of forty-five. Right 
and left of those beautiful loehs over which they sail, in the 
glens and recesses of the wild hills around them, dwell the 
elans that carried such alarm into England. The fastnesses 
of Lochahar, Moidart, and Badenoch, sent forth their moun- 
taineers at the first summons of their Prince. Not a splin- 
tered mountain towers in view, nor a glen pours its waters 
into the Glen More nan Albin, or Great Glen of Scotland, 
but bears on it some trace or tradition of those times. Fort 
William, Fort Augustus, the shattered holds of Inverlochy, 
Invergary, Glen Moriston, all call them to your remem- 
brances. It was here that Lochiel called them around the 
standard of Charles ; it was here they gathered in their 
strength, and drove out every Saxon, except the garrison of 
Fort William ; and it was here that the troops of the bloody 
Duke of Cumberland came at his command, and blasted the 
whole region with fire and sword. It is wonderful how 
nature, in ninety years, can so completely have reclothed 
the valleys with wood, and turned once more that black 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 55 

region of the shadow of death into so smiling a paradise. 
When you ascend to the justly celebrated Fall of Foyers, 
you are again reminded of forty-five, by passing the house 
of Frazer of Foyers ; and as you approach Inverness, you 
only get nearer to the startling catastrophe of the drama. 
Your whole course has been through the haunts of the Ca- 
merons, the Macdonalds, the Grants, the Macphersons, and 
Frazers, the rebel clans of forty-five, — and it leads you, as 
it did them, to the Muir of Culloden. 

From the first commencement of the troubles of the house 
of Stuart to the last effort in their behalf, the Highlanders 
were their firm, and it may be said almost their only friends. 
The Lowland Scots, incensed at the attempt of Charles I. 
to impose the English liturgy upon them, were amongst the 
earliest to proclaim the solemn league and covenant, and to 
join the English Parliament against him ; but the High- 
landers, under Montrose, rose in his cause, and created a 
powerful diversion in his favour. Again, when Charles the 
II. attempted a similar measure and aroused a similar spirit 
in the lowlands, the Highlanders, under the celebrated Cla- 
verhouse, maintained the royal ordinance ; and again, under 
the same commander, fought for James II. against his suc- 
cessful rival William III. In George II. 's reign, in 1715, 
they once more, under the Earl of Mar, set up the standard 
of the Pretender, part of them marching as far as Preston 
in Lancashire, where they were compelled to lay down their 
arms, while the remainder were defeated by the Duke of 
Argyle. Finally, they made their most brilliant, but ulti- 
mately fatal attempt, in 1745, under Prince Charles Edward. 
Thus, for upwards of a hundred years they maintained their 
attachment, and were ready to shed their blood, for the 
fallen race of their ancient kings. So desperate, as it re- 
garded all other aid, was become the Stuart cause, that 
Charles, when he landed on the west coast of Scotland in 
1745, was attended only by seven men. If the hand of 
Providence was ever revealed against the success of any 



56 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEtf. 

cause, through the agency of the elements, it was most sig- 
nally against that of the Stuarts. Great was the admiration 
at the destruction of the Spanish armada in the reign of 
Elizabeth, chiefly by a tempest ; but scarcely, for more than 
a century, did a ship or a fleet issue from the ports of Spain 
or France, to further the design of the Stuarts on England, 
but it was struck upon the rocks, or blown adrift and scat- 
tered by a storm, or instantly encountered by a hostile force. 
In 1715, a vessel, with arms and money, sent by the French 
king to the aid of the Highlanders under Mar, was wrecked 
and totally lost on the coast of Scotland. In 1719, a fleet 
of ten ships of the line, with several frigates, having on 
board 6000 troops, and 12,000 stand of arms, was sent out 
from Cadiz by the court of Spain, to assert the claim of the 
Pretender in England — it was completely dispersed by a 
violent storm off Cape Finisterre ! In the beginning of the 
year 1 744, Charles was summoned from Rome to accompany 
Marshal Saxe, with a French army of 13,000 men, to Eng- 
land. The court and people of England were greatly 
alarmed,* and not without cause, for most of the British 
troops were in Flanders ; the grand fleet of England was 
in the Mediterranean ; and there were only six ships of the 
line ready for sea, lying at Spithead. But the elements 
once more rose against the Stuarts. As Marshal Saxe and 
the young Pretender were busy embarking their troops, the 
wind changed to the east, and blew a storm : several trans- 
ports were wrecked; a good many troops and seamen 
perished ; a great quantity of warlike stores were lost ; an 
English fleet was mustered from the different ports of the 
Channel, and the enterprise was abandoned. 

Spite of this warring of the elements against his family, 
in the following spring he embarked in a frigate of sixteen 
guns, called the Doutelle, accompanied by an old man-of- 
war, the Elizabeth, of sixty guns. They had not sailed far 

* Home's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 32. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 57 

when they met an English man-of-war, the Lyon, which 
engaged the Elizabeth, and so disabled her as to compel her 
to put back to port, and Charles proceeded in his little frigate, 
with seven adventurers and a sum of money somewhat less 
than 4000/. He reached the Western Isles, but was refused 
aid by the chiefs. He landed at Moidart ; erected his stand- 
ard in Glen-Finnan ; the Highlanders rose around him, and 
soon set forward with him on the most daring and adven- 
turous enterprise that ever was undertaken, — no other than 
to hurl his Hanoverian rival from the British throne, and 
set his own father upon it. Their success speedily asto- 
nished all Europe. They marched to Edinburgh, and took 
possession of it. The Prince took up his quarters in Holy- 
rood, the ancient palace of his ancestors, and proclaimed his 
father king. He marched out, and defeated the English 
forces at Preston-Pans, with a facility and a total rout that 
appeared miraculous. His victorious army, amounting to 
less than 6000 men, marched forward to invade England. 
The people of London soon heard with consternation and 
amazement that they had taken Carlisle, occupied Penrith, 
Kendal, Lancaster, Manchester ; and finally, in only thir- 
teen days from their leaving Edinburgh, were quartered in 
Derby. Nothing could exceed the terror of the metropolis. 
The moneyed men were struck with a deadly panic ; num- 
bers got together what property they could and fled into the 
country ; several vessels lay at the Tower quay, ready to 
convey the king and his treasures to Hanover ; the Duke 
of Newcastle, the prime minister, shut himself up alone for 
two days, deliberating whether he should avow himself for 
the Stuart line, or not. It is true that an army of 30,000 
men, chiefly of militia, lay at Finchley, and the Duke of 
Cumberland, with another army, was hovering near the 
Highlanders on the edge of Staffordshire ; but such was the 
opinion of the desperate valour of the Scots, and such were 
the spirits of the Scots themselves, that the Chevalier John- 



58 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEST. 

stone, who was in the Prince's army, and commonly blames 
him for rashness, expresses his persuasion that had he then 
pushed on to London, the Finchley army would have melted 
away, and the crown might now have been on a Stuart's 
head. 

But such was not the fortune of that line. The chiefs, 
struck with a sense of their own temerity, and with the fact 
that none of the English joined them, resolved to retreat 
northward, to the cruel chagrin of both Prince and soldiers. 
They made a retreat as extraordinary as their march had 
been. With the Duke of Cumberland now hotly pursuing, 
they yet pushed on without loss or molestation, except at 
Clifton in Cumberland, where they speedily repulsed the 
Duke's troops. They reacked Falkirk, and there mustering 
8000 men, they attacked and completely routed the English 
army under General Hawley, 13,000 in number. The 
chiefs, still deeming it prudent to retreat, contrary to the 
Prince's judgment, they now reached Inverness, doomed to 
be the scene of the termination of this most extraordinary 
and meteorlike adventure. Prince Charles has been charged 
both by friend and foes with rashness and cowardice. The 
history of Home, who served in the army opposed to him, 
certainly does not warrant any charge of cowardice ; and if 
that of rashness be better founded, it should be recollected 
that Charles Edward had been for years amused with pro- 
mises of assistance from France to regain the crown — pro- 
mises that ended in nothing ; that the prize aimed at was a 
noble one ; that he had seen nothing but victory attend him, 
and the throne at one moment apparently all but achieved. 
That he had been irritated — being forced on retreat after 
retreat by his own officers, over four successive fields of 
victory — and that now they proposed a further retreat into 
the mountains. These must be taken as palliatives ; yet 
his conduct now was rash to madness, and cost him the 
destruction of his cause. The troops were worn out with 



iVISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 59 

their long and wonderful march. They were famished for 
want of provisions. They had had no pay for six weeks ; 
and the bulkof them were dispersed, seeking rest and refresh- 
ment amongst their friends and families. These circum- 
stances all pointed to the course which his chiefs counselled, 
to avoid a general engagement, and assume a strong posi- 
tion in the mountains. The evil angel of the Stuart race 
prevailed. Charles harassed his men by a miserable night 
march in a vain attempt to surprise Cumberland's camp ; 
and when the worn-out and starving soldiers had just 
thrown themselves down in the neighbouring woods, and 
under the walls on Culloden Moor to sleep, the Duke was 
upon them. It is melancholy to imagine those brave men, who 
had shown such unparalleled devotion, and had performed 
such wonders, thus forced to go into battle, faint with want 
of food, of rest, and sleep, with scarcely half of their num- 
bers assembled.* The English artillery swept them down 
by whole ranks, and they were speedily seen flying in all 
directions. The fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed for 
ever, and the bloody butcheries of the monster Cumberland 
were then to begin. 

Thinking and talking over " this strange eventful history,'' 
we set out from the interesting town of Inverness,* to walk 

* The number of Highlanders in the battle of Culloden was about 
5000; of the king's troops nearly double that amount. 

f Inverness is one of the most delightful and interesting places in the 
kingdom. Delightful from its fine situation, on the margin of the Murray 
Frith, and surrounded by mountain regions of the greatest beauty. It is 
interesting by its numerous poetical and historical associations. Being 
the capital of the highlands, it is full of clan history. Almost every ob- 
ject on which your eye falls has its peculiar recommendation — such as 
the old castle of Macbeth, where he murdered the king ; Craig Phadric, 
a wild hill crowned with one of those vitrified forts that have so much 
puzzled the antiquaries ; Tomnaheurich, or the Hill of the Fairies, a very 
singular hill, said to be the burial-place of Thomas the Rhymer, etc., etc. 



60 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

to Culloden Moor, on Thursday the 11 th of August, 1836 
— just ninety years and about three months after the occur- 
rence of that memorable battle, it being fought on the 1 6th of 
April, 1746. 

We found it a pleasant ramble of about four miles ; partly 
amid pleasant cultivated fields, with their corn ripe for the 
harvest ; partly along the shore of the Murray Frith ; and 
partly through woods of Scotch fir. As we approached 
Culloden, we asked many of the peasantry living near the 
wood whether we were in the right direction, but not one 
could, speak English. The ground gradually ascended as 
we advanced, and when we came in sight of the Moor, we 
found a sort of observatory tower built by the gentleman 
who now lives in Culloden House, and a number of old can- 
nons lying about, evidently intended to give the place a for- 
tified air 5 one of those whims which so frequently seize 
people in picturesque situations, but of which the interest 
dies before the object is finished. We were now speedily 
on the Moor, and were at a loss whether to admire more 
the black and blasted aspect of this fatal spot, or the mag- 
nificent scenery of which it is the melancholy centre. To 
the south, beyond the river Nairn, rose wild ranges of hills 
which run into the mountains of Badenoch ; to the north lay 
at our feet, the Murray Frith, to the right showing Fort 
George, built on a narrow promontory pushing into it from 
the southern shore, and on the opposite shore Fort Rose ; to 
our left lay the dark woods and green hills between us and 
Inverness, and all before us one wide and splendid prospect, 
— the mountain regions of Rosshire, with Ben Wyvers 
lifting his cloudy bulk far above the rest. 

Between us and the Murray Frith ran a narrow strip of 
cultivated country, and just below us appeared, shrouded 
in its solemn woods, Culloden House, at the time of the Re- 
bellion the residence of the celebrated Lord Forbes of Cullo- 
den, President of the Court of Session ; a man whose advice, 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 61 

had it been taken, would, in all probabilityj have prevented 
the Rebellion, and whose exertions actually broke it of so 
much of its force that its defeat may be attributed to him 
more than to any other cause.* The Moor itself, on which we 
stood, we found as Robert Chambers in his Picture of Scot- 
land has correctly stated, " a vast table-land covered with 
heath, over which are scattered a few wretched cottages." 
These cottages, however, are chiefly sprinkled over that side 
of the Moor nearest to Inverness, with their little patches of 
corn and potatoes, and give some aspect of life and cultiva- 
tion to the scene ; but the site of the battle itself, and the 
heath far beyond, are as free from the marks of culture as 
they could be in the days of Adam. In the words of the 
same worthy and indefatigable authority, " the whole plain 
is as desolate and blasted in appearance as if it suffered 
under a curse, or were conscious of the blood which it had 
drank." It is, in fact, in strict poetical keeping with our 
feelings on visiting such a place. Culloden Moor ought to be 
Culloden Moor ; not a mere common-place tract of pasturage 
or corn-field. Old battle fields are the property of the na- 
tion ; they are spots bearing evidence to the changes of our 
dynasties, and the conflicts, good or evil, through which 

* The heavy Dutch and Hanoverian kings whom it was the fortune 
of this kingdom to have subsequently to the expulsion of the Stuarts, 
never seemed to have the slightest conception that their rule might be 
made popular by conciliation and kindness. The Highlanders, who were 
the most to be feared in case of any attempt of the Stuarts to regain the 
crown, were treated uniformly with contempt or asperity. In 1738, 
Lord Forbes, when a war with Spain was expected, represented to Sir 
Robert Walpole, through Lord Milton and the Earl of Hay, that the first 
thing which Spain would do would be to excite the Highlanders ; but that 
all that danger might be most easily prevented by raising four or five High- 
land regiments, and giving commissions in them to their chiefs. Sir 
Robert expressed his admiration of the plan, wondered that it bad never 
before occurred to any one, and warmly recommended it in council. The 
scheme was rejected, and in seven years after came the Rebellion. 

6 



Q2 VISIT TO THE FIELD OP CULLODEN. 

England has passed to what she now is. However, there- 
fore, farmers and country squires, and political economists 
may rave at our folly, we cannot help being jealous of the 
rooting out with the plough and the spade, the identifying 
marks of our national battle-fields. The greater part of the 
scenes of these great conflicts, of which we read in English 
history, we find, on visiting, so exactly like the other fields 
of hay and corn around them, that we have a difficulty in 
realizing to ourselves that these are actually the sites of those 
great actions that stand so prominently in our annals. Even 
Flodden is a corn-field ; and the hill on which James V. 
posted himself, is at present fast disappearing to mend the 
roads. But Culloden is everything that the poet or the an- 
tiquary would wish it to be. It is solemn and melancholy 
as the imagination of the most sympathetic visiter can desire : 
and who does not sympathize with the fate of so many brave 
men, who had burst forth in so romantic an enterprise for 
the restoration of their fallen kings, and had done such ex- 
traordinary deeds in it ? Who can avoid sympathizing in 
the last vain efforts of a high-spirited people to maintain 
their independence against a nation of such overwhelming 
power as England, notwithstanding the misgovernment of 
the Stuarts, and the clear demonstration, from that day to 
this, that their removal from the throne was one of the most 
auspicious events that ever happened to this kingdom. 

Though ninety years have passed since the battle of Cul- 
loden, the field is covered with the marks of that day. 
The moment you set foot on the scene of action, you recog- 
nize every position of the contending armies, and the objects 
which surrounded them. The night before the battle, Prince 
Charles and his officers lodged in Culloden House. There 
stands Culloden, restored and beautiful since then, but occu- 
pying the same site and surrounded by the same wood. 
The battle took place between this house and an extensive 
inclosure on the Moor, the north wall of which screened the 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 53 

right flank of the Highland army. This wall the English 
troops partly pulled down, and raked the flank of the rebels 
with such a murderous fire of artillery as cut down almost 
every man, and caused the almost instantaneous rout of the 
right wing. The mouldering remains of that old and shat- 
tered wall still stretch across the Moor in the very course 
laid down in the original plans of the battle. In the centre 
of the place of action the ground was hollow and boggy. 
The ground is now sound, but you see plainly the hollow 
extent of the morass. 

To the south-west stood, at that day, a large farm-house, 
called Balvraid ; to this house the right wing of the rebels 
retreated ; here great numbers of their comrades gathered 
to them, and in a body made good, and indeed without 
pursuit, their way into Badenoch. The house stands there 
yet. On the northern edge of the battle-field, near the ex- 
tremity of the left wing, is marked the site of a hut : this 
was unquestionably the hut of a blacksmith, the only house 
then standing precisely on the battle-field. This smith, so 
says the current tradition of the place, was a stalwart fellow, 
but not at all desirous to take part in the fray, but the High- 
landers compelled every man that they found in the vicinity 
to come forth to their help. Their numbers were diminished 
by absence, and their strength by starvation and excessive 
fatigue ; they needed all aid that they could command, and 
they insisted on the jolly smith taking arms. The smith 
was very loath and very dogged, but, snatching up the 
shaft of a cart that was reared against the wall of his 
smithy, he took his post beside them. When, however, he 
saw the havoc made by the English cavalry amongst his 
countrymen, his blood was up, and rushing into the thickest 
of the fray, he laid about him with his tremendous weapon, 
knocking down the troopers from their horses, and levelling 
all that he came near. The exploits of this son of Vulcan 
turning the attention of the cavalry on him, he was beset 



64 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

by overwhelming numbers, and after performing prodigies 
of valour, and laying low many with his cart shaft, he was 
at length compelled to fly. He took the road towards In- 
verness, the direction which the greater number of the fugi- 
tives were taking, and after turning repeatedly on his pur- 
suers, and bringing down several of them, he was at length 
killed, not far from the mill, about a mile from Inverness, 
where the last bodies were found. The country people yet 
tell the spot where the sturdy blacksmith dropped. His 
smithy stood from year to year on the fatal field, deserted 
and gradually falling to decay. It remained a heap of 
smouldering ruin till within these few years, when several 
fresh huts springing up on the Moor not far off, the people 
gradually conveyed away the stones of the walls to con- 
struct their own habitations. It is said that the forge, the 
tools, and heaps of rusty iron, were found beneath the ruins 
of the roof which had fallen in. Such had been the horror 
connected with that fatal field, that none had cared to carry 
them away. When we saw the place every stone was 
grubbed up to the bottom of the foundation, and a pool of 
water nearly filled the hollow ; but you had only to turn 
up any part of the floor which was bare, and you found it 
to consist of the cinders and smithy-slack of the brave old 
blacksmith's forge. 

A road has been cut across the Moor since the battle, 
which passes right through the centre of the scene of action, 
and runs close past the site of the smith's forge ; and it 
passes, too, amid what are the most striking and con- 
spicuous objects on the field — the graves of the slaugh- 
tered soldiers. Nothing can be more impressive than these 
graves. The whole Moor besides is one black waste of 
heath ; but these graves are grassy mounds of clear green, 
the only green spot within the whole compass of the melan- 
choly Moor. They lie right and left of the road, but prin- 
cipally on the south side. The road, as we observed, 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. g5 

having been cut across the heath since the battle, and 
passing directly across the place of graves, has no doubt 
covered some of them for ever from our view, but has 
brought the remainder under the very eye of all that travel 
through Culloden. Burns once looked on these green hil- 
locks in his northern ramble, and described his own and the 
popular feeling in 



THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 

The lovely lass o' Inverness, 
Na joy nor pleasure can she see ; 
For e'en and morn she cries alas ! 
And ay the saut tear blins her e'e : — 

" Drumossie Moor,* Drumossie day, 
A waefu' day it was to me ! 
For there I lost my father dear, 
My father dear and brethren three. 

" Their winding-sheet the bloody clay, 
Their graves are growing green to see ; 
And by them lies the dearest lad 
That ever blest a woman's e'e ! 

"Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, 
A bloody man I trow thou be ; 
For many a heart thou hast made sair, 
That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee." 

That we might not miss any information connected with 
the spot, we entered a hut not very far from the old smith's 
forge, and to our great satisfaction found a family that could 

* Drumossie was the old name of Culloden. 
6* 



66 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODElSr. 

speak English. They were, a widow of the name of Mac- 
kenzie, and her son and daughter, both grown up. They 
appeared very intelligent, and took a warm interest in every- 
thing relating to the field of battle. They told us that some 
of their family had lived on this spot from the day of the 
contest. That, besides the smith's hut, this was the only 
one in the immediate vicinity of the field. That it had 
been called Stable Hollow ever since, from a number of the 
English troopers after the fight putting up their horses in 
the shed belonging to it, while they went to strip the slain. 
That their ancestors, the occupiers of the cottage, all made 
their escape, with the exception of one young man who 
was compelled by the Highlanders to go into the battle. 
That such was his horror and frenzy, when he saw the 
flight and bloody havoc that took place, that he flew across 
the field without knowing whither he was going, and was 
not heard of for more than two months, when he most un- 
expectedly again made his appearance, wasted almost to a 
skeleton. They had supposed him killed in the battle. 
They afterwards learned that he had been roving amongst 
the hills of JBadenoch, in a state of apparent idiocy ; and 
only saved from starvation by the pity of the inhabitants. 
Of this, however, he himself could give no account, nor did 
he ever afterwards regain his former tone of mind. 

William, or, as they called him, Wully Mackenzie, the 
widow's son, was a short, strong-built youth of about 
twenty years of age ; he was a gardener by trade, and as 
well informed as Scotch gardeners generally are. We were 
particularly pleased with the openness and intelligence of 
his countenance, and on his part he offered with great evi- 
dence of pleasure to conduct us over the field. He pointed 
out to us a large stone, not far from their cottage ; i. e., on 
the north side of the scene of action, and on the left wing 
of the Highland army, where tradition said that a French 
engineer had posted his artillery, and committed considera- 



"VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 67 

ble havoc on the English line. When he reached the 
graves, he directed our attention to a little stream that wan- 
dered through the heath near them, and a spring which 
was before the battle particularly admired for its delicious 
water. During the contest a number of the wounded 
crawled to it to assuage their thirst ; and amongst them an 
officer who, as he was just raising his head, again was 
struck with a ball, and fell with his head into the spring. 
There, after the battle, he was found ; the fountain itself 
perfectly choked up with the stiffened corses of himself and 
the heaps of combatants that had fallen there. From that 
day to the present, he said, nobody would ever drink from 
that spring; and in truth it was nearly overgrown with long 
grass and weeds, that testified to its not being disturbed by 
visitants. 

As we sate on the greensward of one of these battle-graves, 
we observed that in many places the turf had been broken 
up by digging ; and our young guide told us that scarcely 
a party came there but was desirous to carry away the 
fragment of a bone as a relic. " What," said we, " are the 
bones soon come at ?" " Yes," he replied, " in some places 
they lie within a foot of the surface." These graves have 
been dug into in hundred of places, yet you can scarcely 
turn a turf but you come upon them. He dug out a sod 
with his knife, and throwing out a little earth, presently 
came to fragments of the crumbling bones of the skeletons 
of 1746. He told us that in one instance, a quantity of 
bones which had been carried off by a traveller, had been 
sent back at a great expense, and buried again ; the person 
who conveyed them away being continually tormented by 
his conscience and his dreams, till this was done ; " and the 
next visiter," added Wully Mackenzie, " would most 
probably carry them off once more." ' Balls and portions of 
military accoutrements are still not unfrequently found about 
the heath. We picked up as we walked across it, a leaden 



68 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

bullet, flattened by having struck against some hard body 
and rendered quite white with age. 

" Many a clever fellow lies here !" said young Macken- 
zie, as he was busy turning up the sod in quest of some 
appearance of bones ; and indeed what a contrast was that 
quiet scene, with the sun and breeze of August playing over 
it, to what it was ninety years before, when these dry bones 
lived! In such situations we often, and very naturally, 
wish that we could call up some of the dead to tell us what 
were their thoughts and feelings in that moment of wrath 
and confusion ; but we had no need of that here. All those 
who were now reduced beneath our feet to dust and 
mouldering bones, had left their representatives behind 
them, to tell us not only what they had suffered, but what 
the surviving Highlanders suffered. Many who fought in 
that battle, have left more or less some written account of 
it ; but remarkably enough, an officer of each contending 
army has been the historian of the whole war. Home in 
the king's army, and the Chevalier Johnstone in that of the 
prince, have left us vivid records of the field of Culloden, 
and all that led to it, and all that followed it. The escape, 
and wanderings of Prince Charles for more than five months 
through the Highlands, with the king's soldiers after him, 
with the price of 30,000/. set upon his head, and the per- 
emptory orders of the Duke of Cumberland to put him to 
death the instant he was found -r- his living in the cave in 
the wild mountain Coramhian, with the seven Macdonalds — 
his escape by Captain Mackenzie personating him, and 
sacrificing his life for him : the adventure of Flora Mac- 
donald, the prototype of Scott's Flora Mac Ivor, who 
rescued him from his pursuers in one of the Western Isles, 
by conveying him away disguised as her Irish maid Betty 
Burke, — all these things, from their own romantic nature, 
and the rank of the person concerned, have been made 
familiar to all readers. The narrative of the escape of the 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 69 

Chevalier Johnstone, however, as written by himself, is to 
the full, in my opinion, as interesting, because it may be 
considered as the recital of one out of the multitude of those 
who fled from Culloden for their lives — some to escape by 
a hair's-breadth, but many more to perish by the sword of 
the pursuer, or the scaffold, as Kilmarnock, Balmerino, old 
Lovat, and their fellows, whose heads so long dried in the 
winds on Temple Bar and London Bridge.* 

* The Chevalier Johnstone's history is a romance of real life, to the full 
as interesting, and abounding with hair-breadth escapes, as the tales of 
the author of Waverley ; and, indeed, frequently reminds you of his cha- 
racters and incidents. The chevalier was the only son of James John- 
stone, merchant in Edinburgh. His family, by descent and alliance, was 
connected with some of the first houses in Scotland. His sister Cecilia 
was married to a son of Lord Rollo, who succeeded to the title and estate 
in 1765. The chevalier moved in the best society of the Scottish capital, 
and was treated by the then celebrated Lady Jane Douglas with the ten- 
derness of a parent. Educated in Episcopalian and Jacobite principles, 
on the first intelligence of the landing of Prince Charles Edward, he 
made his escape from Edinburgh to the seat of Lord Rollo, near Perth, 
where he waited the arrival of the Prince, and was one of the first low- 
country gentlemen that joined his standard. He acted as aid-de-camp to 
Lord George Murray, and also to the Prince ; and after the battle of Preston- 
Pans, he received a captain's commission, and bore a part in all the move- 
ments of the rebel army till the defeat at Culloden. From Culloden he es- 
caped with the utmost peril to Killihuntly, where Mrs. Gordon, the lady ot 
the house, offered to build him a hut in the mountains, and give him a few 
sheep to look after, so that he might pass for a shepherd ; but the unea- 
siness of his mind would not allow him to adopt such a life. He fled to 
Rothiemurchus, where the young laird advised him to surrender himself 
to the government, as he had advised others, particularly Lord Balmerino ; 
advice which, had he adopted it, would have caused his destruction, as it 
did theirs. From house to house, and place to place, he escaped by the 
most wonderful chances and under all sorts of disguises. He passed con- 
tinually amongst the English soldiers, busy at their work of devastation, 
his blood boiling with fury at the sight, but instant death his fate if he 
gave one sign of his feelings. Seventeen days he remained in the house 
of a very poor peasant, called Samuel, in Glen-Prossen ; Samuel's daugh- 



70 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

One cannot even now, nearly a century after its enact- 
ment, traverse this last field of the Jacobite wars, without 
a strong feeling for all the human suffering in which this 
bloody drama closed ; but still stronger is that of indignant 
contempt for that monster Cumberland. It was impossible 
not to reflect what was the shocking barbarity with which 
he treated many of those whose bones now mouldered be- 
neath our feet. " The Duke of Cumberland," says the 
Chevalier Johnstone, " had the cruelty to allow our wounded 

ter watching at the entrance of the glen. He was determined to reach 
Edinburgh if possible, and thence escape to England, and so to the Conti- 
nent ; but chances were a hundred to one against him. Every part of 
the country was overrun with soldiers, every outlet was watched, and 
heavy penalties denounced on any boatman who conveyed a rebel across 
the Tay and Forth. He prevailed, however, with two young ladies to 
ferry him over the Tay ; but after a dreadful journey on foot into Fife- 
shire, he found the utmost difficulty in getting across the Forth to Edin- 
burgh. The account of his negotiations and disappointments at Dubbie- 
sides, where no fisherman would carry him over ; but where he did at 
length get carried over by a young gentleman and a drunken fisher, is 
very much in the Waverley manner. After being concealed with an old 
nurse at Leith, and partly with Lady Jane Douglas at Drumsheagh — he 
set out for England as a Scotch pedlar, on a pony. On his way he en- 
countered a Dick Turpin sort of gentleman, and again a mysterious per- 
sonage, who entered the inn where he was near Stamford, seated himself 
at table with him, and after playing away heartily at a piece of cold veal, 
began to interrogate him about the rebels in Scotland. Escaping from 
this fellow by the sacrifice of some India handkerchiefs, he got to Lon- 
don, where he lay concealed for a long time amongst his friends — fell 
into a very interesting love adventure — and saw many of his com- 
rades pass his window on their way to execution. On one occasion he 
was invited by his landlord as a relaxation, to go and see two rebels exe- 
outed on Tower Hill, Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino ! He finally 
escaped to Holland, in the train of his friend Lady Jane Douglas; entered 
into the service of France, went to Louisbourg in America, and returned 
to France to poverty and old age ! Such is one recorded life of a Jaco- 
bite of the expedition of forty-five, — how many such, and even more 
wretched, passed unrecorded ! 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 7! 

to remain amongst the dead on the field of battle, stript of 
their clothes, from Wednesday, the day of our unfortunate 
engagement, till three o'clock on Friday, when he sent de- 
tachments to kill all those who were still in life ; and a great 
many, who had resisted the effects of the continual rains 
which fell all that time, were then despatched. He ordered 
a barn, which contained many of the wounded Highlanders, 
to be set on fire ; and having stationed soldiers round it, they 
with fixed bayonets drove back the unfortunate men who 
attempted to save themselves, into the flames ; burning them 
alive in this horrid manner, as if they had not been fellow- 
creatures."* This was a fitting commencement of those 
dreadful atrocities which he perpetrated in the country of 
the rebellious clans. The burnings, massacres, violations, 
and other demoniacal outrages with which he laid waste 
some of the most beautiful regions on the globe ; deeds 
which will make his name infamous while there is a human 
feeling, or the power to record it in the world. 

As we left the field, we gave, with our thanks, a small 
gratuity to our intelligent young guide, Wully Mackenzie, 
which seemed to him so much beyond his services, that, in- 
the height of his gratitude, he was quite uneasy that he 
could not show us some further good office. " Was there 
nothing more that he could do ? Would we go in and sit 
down to rest us awhile? Would we like a tune on the bag- 
pipes?" As it is always a pleasure to gratify a generous 
feeling, in we went, and took our seats in their little hut, 
a regular Highland habitation, with smoky rafters, while 
Wully produced his pipes, and began to put them in order. 
There is something very delightful to sit in the simple cabin 
of these mountaineers, and see them converse with an easy 
and unembarrassed air, and with a mixture of intelligence 
and local superstition nowhere else to be found. We ob- 

* Memoirs of the Rebellion, p. 146. 



72 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

served that the beds, and various parts of the roof, were 
canopied with birch boughs, which had dried with all their 
leaves on. These, they assured us, were a certain protec- 
tion from the plague of flies, for not a fly would go near the 
birch. This, we suppose, is a fact which experience has 
taught them, and if so, is a valuable one. We had a long 
talk with these good people, about the battle-field and its 
traditions. They told us that the name of Drumossie was 
not now used for that Moor — Culloden had superseded it ; 
but was retained on a wild track at its extremity in the di- 
rection of Badenoch. They assured us, with the utmost 
gravity, that a battle would some day be fought there. We 
inquired how they knew that. They replied, that it had 
been repeatedly seen. On a summer's evening, people 
going across that moor had suddenly on various occasions 
found themselves in the very midst of the smoke and noise 
of a battle. They could see the various clans engaged, and 
clearly recognize them by their proper tartans ; and on all 
these occasions the Laird of Culdethel, a neighbouring gen- 
tleman, was conspicuous on his white horse. One woman 
was so frightened and bewildered by this strange spectacle 
that she fainted away, and on coming to herself, found all 
traces of the battle gone, and made the best of her way home 
again without proceeding on her original object. We told 
them that these must be strong impressions left on the ima- 
ginations of the people by the memory of the old battle, but 
they only shook their heads. They were perfectly satisfied 
that a battle was to be fought on Drumossie, and that the 
Laird of Culdethel would be in it — though with whom the 
clans would fight, and for what, they could not pretend to 
tell. 

Having finished our discussion on this singular second- 
sight sort of superstition, Wully Mackenzie struck up on his 
pipes. The pipes are the true instrument of the Highlands, 
as the harp is that of Wales, or the guitar of Spain. We 



VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 73 

never felt so strongly their power as on this occasion. Our 
musician was, as I have said, a short, stout Highlander. He 
was clad in coarse blue cloth, every thread of which his 
mother had spun, and which, when woven, had been made 
up too by his mother and sister in this very cabin ; yet, as 
he stood playing his native airs, he seemed quite inspired, 
and we could not help being struck with the manliness of 
his attitude, and of his whole bearing. We never heard 
the music of the bagpipe in perfection till then. He played 
the tune with which the Highlanders were said to have 
marched into the battle of Culloden. We could see the gal- 
lant bands pass over the heath on which we were gazing 
through the open door. We could see the glimmer of their 
weapons, and the fluttering of their tartans, and feel, peaceful 
people as we are, the romantic spirit of heroism which had 
led them on their expedition into England, and now brought 
them here to destruction. 

Our gallant piper never seemed weary of playing ; and 
as it was a treat to sit in a Highland hut, and hear such a 
musician, we got him to play all the interesting airs that we 
could recollect. There scarcely was one that he was not 
master of ; and on no occasion did we ever listen to music 
that so powerfully and variously affected us. He played 
pibrochs and marches, and, spite of our better judgments, 
we could not help kindling into the admiration of clan war- 
fare ; but the celebrated dirge, of which he related the ori- 
gin, with which Highlanders march to the shore when they 
are about to embark as emigrants to some distant clime* — 

Cha till, cha till, cha till, mi tuille. 

We return, we return, we return no more ! 



* This is called Mackrimmon's Lament. Sir Walter Scott has written 
words to this air, and gives the following as the origin of it : " Mackrim- 
mon, hereditary piper to the Laird of Macleod, is said to have composed 
this lament when the clan was about to depart on a distant and dangerous 

7 



74 VISIT TO THE FIELD OF CULLODEN. 

— it was impossible to listen to it without tears. Let no 
one despise the droning of the bagpipe that has not heard it 
as we heard it that day. 

We took leave of this simple, intelligent, and kind-hearted 
family, and walked back, on a delicious evening, a nearer 
way over the fields to Inverness ; having passed one of the 
pleasantest days of our life on the Field of Culloden. 

expedition. The minstrel was impressed with a belief, which the event 
verified, that he was to be slain in the approaching feud, and hence the 
Gaelic words : — ' Cha till mi tuille ; ged thilles Macleod, cha till Mac- 
hrimmon.'' I shall never return; although Macleod returns, yet Mac- 
krimmon shall never return." 

Wully Mackenzie had a different version of the tradition. That there 
was a cave in the isle of Sky which had never been explored to any ter- 
mination. That Mackrimmon and another bard, Macleod, dared each 
other to explore it; and that Mackrimmon composed this lament on the 
occasion, and went playing it into the cave, from which neither of the 
bards reappeared. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON, AND THE 
HAUNTS OF SHAKSPEARE. 

The country about Stratford is not romantic, but extremely- 
pleasant. The town stands in a fine open valley. The 
Avon, a considerable stream, winds past it through pleasing 
meadows. The country is well cultivated, and the view of 
wooded uplands and more distant ranges of hills, gives 
spirit to the prospects. The town itself is a good, quiet, 
country town, of perhaps four or five thousand inhabitants. 
In Shakspeare's time it could be nothing more than a con- 
siderable village ; for by the census of 1801 the total of its 
inhabitants was but 2418. In that day, the houses were, 
no doubt, built of wood or of framework, such as the dwell- 
ing of Shakspeare's parents still remains. Fires appear, by 
the history of the place, to have been frequent and destruc- 
tive. In the 36th and 37th of Elizabeth two furious fires 
occurred, and so reduced the property of the inhabitants as 
to compel them to petition parliament for a remission of sub- 
sidies and taxes, and for a portion of £36,000 which had 
been granted for the relief of decayed cities and towns. The 
residence of Shakspeare himself narrowly escaped. 

Stratford appears now to live on the fame of Shakspeare. 
You see the mementos of the great native poet wherever 
you turn. There is the Mulberry-tree Inn ; the Imperial 
Shakspeare Hotel ; the Sir John FalstafT; the Royal Shak- 
speare Theatre : the statue of Shakspeare meets your eye 
in its niche on the front of the Town-hall. Opposite to that, 
a large sign informs you that there is kept a collection of 



76 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

the relics of Shakspeare, and not far off you arrive at another 
sign, conspicuously projecting into the street, on which is 
proclaimed, — "in this house the immortal bard was 
born." The people seem all alive to the honour of their 
town having produced Shakspeare. The tailor will descend 
from his shopboard, or the cobbler start up from his stall, and 
volunteer to guide you to the points connected with the his- 
tory of the great poet. A poor shoemaker, on my asking 
at his door the nearest way to the church containing Shak- 
speare's tomb, immediately rose up and began to put on 
his coat. I said, " No, my friend, I do not want you to put 
yourself to that trouble ; go on with your work — I only 
want you to say whether this way be the most direct." 
" Bless you, sir," said the man, taking up his hat, " I don't 
want anything for showing a gentleman the way to Shak- 
speare's tomb ; it is a pleasure to me. I am fond on't ; and 
a walk, now and then, does me good." The old man bustled 
along, holding forth with enthusiasm in the praise of Shak- 
speare, and coming up to the sexton's house, and knocking, 

— " There," said he, " I have saved you ten minutes' walk : 

— don't forget to look at old Johnny Combe !" and was 
turning off highly pleased that he had done something to 
the honour of Shakspeare, and reluctant to receive even the 
value of a glass of ale for his services. 

The Royal Shakspeare Club annually celebrate the birth 
of Shakspeare on the 23d of April, and even Washington 
Irving is held in great honour for having recorded in his 
Sketch-Book his visit to his tomb. At one of the inns they 
show you Washington Irving's room and his bed. In the 
Red Horse, at which I stayed, my room was adorned with 
his sole portrait, and all the keepers of Stratford albums 
take good care to point out to you the signature of Wash- 
ington Irving, the American who spoke so highly of Shak- 
speare. 

It is pleasing to find the prophet enjoying so much 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 77 

honour in his own country ; and yet I shall have a fact or 
two presently to mention, which will require the serious 
attention of the people of Stratford, if they do not mean all 
this show of zeal for the poet's memory to appear empty 
and inconsistent. 

One of the first places which I hastened to visit was the 
birth-place of Shakspeare's wife ; the rustic cottage where 
he wooed, and whence he married her. Millions, perhaps, 
have visited the house where he was born ; tens of thou- 
sands have certainly inscribed their names on the walls of 
that simple chamber where he is said to have first seen the 
light; but not so many have visited, or known of, or 
inquired after the house where his modest, faithful, and 
affectionate wife, 

Ann Hathaway, she hath a way, 

was born, and lived, and became the wife of Shakspeare 
when he was nineteen, and she twenty-seven. 

Shakspeare seems to have had no personal ambition. If 
he had, we should have had more account of the incidents of 
his existence. He seems to have thrown off his inimitable 
dramas, rich with passion and poetry, more from the very 
enjoyment of the act, than from the glory to be derived from 
them. So, too, in his youth, he married the first humble 
object of his affections ; and after having seen all the fasci- 
nations of London life, after having conversed with the 
most celebrated beauties and wits of Elizabeth's splendid 
court, he retired with a competence to the quiet uneventful 
town of Stratford, the quiet haunts of his youth, and to 
domestic peace with his true Ann Hathaway. 

There is nothing more wonderful in the character of 
Shakspeare than the perfect indifference shown to the fate 
of his inimitable dramas. For thirteen years after his 
retirement from the stage, and those years the very prime 

7* 



78 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

of his existence — for he died at the early age of fifty- 
two — he continued to live, and that in a great degree in 
the perfect leisure of Stratford, without apparently taking 
the slightest means to secure a correct edition of his works. 
He threw them off with the greatest imaginable ease and 
rapidity, the " Merry Wives of Windsor " being said only 
to have occupied a fortnight in the composition, and to 
have left them to the care of the public as stoically as the 
ostrich leaves its eggs to the sun. It could not be that he 
was insensible to their merit, for in his sonnets he gives us 
repeated assurances of the immortality of his muse ; but it 
would seem as if, satisfied with the consciousness that he 
had done enough to secure his eternal fame, he followed his 
natural bent for the enjoyment of domestic life, and the 
entire forgetfulness of public concerns in which he was 
absorbed by it, testifying that there lay his entire happiness. 
That he spent the greater portion of the last sixteen years 
of his life at Stratford there is every reason to believe, 
having purchased for his residence one of the best houses 
of his native town, in 1597, which, having repaired and 
improved, he named New Place ; nor is any other trace of 
him discoverable, independent of his literary exertions, from 
that year, except that in 1 602 he was at Stratford, adding a 
new purchase of one hundred and seven acres of land to his 
former purchase of New Place. Not all the havoc com- 
mitted by players and publishers on the sense and diction 
of his great dramas could rouse him from his domestic rest. 
" He made," says Johnson, " no collection of his works, nor 
desired to rescue those that had been already published from 
the depravations that obscured them, or to secure to the rest 
a better destiny by giving them to the world in their genuine 
state. . . . They were transcribed for the players by 
those who may be supposed to have seldom understood 
them ; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, 
who still multiplied errors ; they were, perhaps, sometimes 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 79 

mutilated by actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches, 
and were, at best, printed without corrections of the 
press." 

All this were enough to have roused, one would have 
thought, any author that had but sufficient ambition to write, 
but it disturbed not Shakspeare, and it must appear that the 
astonishing power displayed in his dramas was not the most 
wonderful quality of his nature. He had a mind that could 
not only achieve what was beyond the fame of other men, 
but a calm indifference even for his own fame, that more 
resembled the elevation of a divine nature than the nervous 
temperament of humanity. How different is this, even to 
the sensitiveness of his own youth, when the insult which 
he supposed himself to have received from Sir Thomas Lucy 
stung him to the quick, and induced him to gibbet him in 
ballads, and run for miles to fix them on his park-gate ; an 
irritability so lasting that it revived and issued to the light 
again in the " Merry Wives of Windsor." 

That Shakspeare valued the enjoyments of domestic life, 
beyond both the brilliant life of successful literature in 
London and beyond the fame of his works, his long quiet 
retirement at Stratford sufficiently proves. There have not 
been wanting those who have accused him of indifference 
or infidelity towards his wife ; but, whatever might be the 
occasional dissipations in which he might indulge during his 
London sojourn, he has himself left the most triumphant 
testimonies of his strong and changeless affection to his Ann 
Hathaway,* and that it was in the depth of domestic 

* The author of the beautiful and able romance of " The Youth of 
Shakspeare" has, contrary to his usual sagacity, and without any sufficient 
historic evidence, and contrary, moreover, to the evidence of Shakspeare 
himself, here produced, unfortunately fallen into the former opinion, that 
of his alienation from her whom the writer himself thus describes in 
Shakspeare's days of courtship : — "To him everything was Ann Hatha- 
way, but especially all wisdom, goodness, beauty, and delight, took from 



80 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

existence that he found his real happiness. Nothing can 
be more beautiful than those of his sonnets which refer to 
these subjects. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love is not love 
That alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove. 

no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken. 
It is the star of every wandering bark, 
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 
Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
Love alters not with his brief hours a.nd weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
If this be error, and upon me proved,— 

1 never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

There never were fourteen lines which so deeply and 
eternally express the sentiment clearly springing from the bot- 
tom of the poet's soul, of the unchangeableness of true af- 
fection. That one sonnet is enough to cast to the winds 
every malignant slander against the true heart of Shak- 
speare. That he, like other men, had fallen into errors, he 
was the first most earnestly and eloquently to avow ; but 
where was the man, that after having won the fame that 
he had, and passed through the Circean enchantments of 
metropolitan beauty, and splendour, and wit, as he had, ever 
gave so marvellous a proof that his heart of hearts was not 
in them, but that his only hope and idea of true happiness 
was in his native fields, and in the home of his wedded af- 
fection ? What accuser could venture to stand up against 

her their existence, and gave to her their qualities. She was, in brief, the 
sun round which the rest of creation must needs take its course." — Vol. 
ii., p. 183. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. SI 

such a man, after reading the very next sonnet, the continua- 
tion, in fact, of the former ? 

Accuse me thus, — that I have scanted all, 

Wherein I should your great deserts repay ; 

Forgot upon your dearest love to call, 

Whereto all bonds do tie me, day by day; 

That I have frequent been with unknown minds, 

And given to time your own dear-purchased right ; 

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds, 

Which should transport me farthest from your sight. 

Book both my wilfulness and errors down ; 

And on joint proof surmise accumulate ; 

Bring me within the level of your frown, 

But shoot not at me in your wakened hate: 

Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove 

The constancy and virtue of your love. 

That his long absence, for it does not appear that his wife 
ever left Stratford to reside with him in town, had occa- 
sioned some misunderstanding and estrangement between 
her and himself, would appear from several of his sonnets, 
which are the only records which he has left of his life and 
internal feelings ; but the sorrow and repentance which he 
expresses are more than enough to unbend the brow of the 
sternest judge, much more of a tender and loving wife. 

O, never say that I was false of heart, 
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify ! 
As easy might 1 from myself depart, 
As from my soul which in thy heart doth lie. 
That is my home of love : if I have ranged, 
Like him that travels, I return again ; 
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged ; 
So that myself bring water for my stain. 
Never believe, though in my nature reigned 
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, 
That it could so preposterously be stained, 
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good : 



82 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

For nothing this wide universe I call 
Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all. 

Alas ! 'tis true I have gone here and there, 

And made myself a motley to the view ; 

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, 

Made old offences of affections new. 

Most true it is that I have looked on truth 

Askance and strangely ; but, by all above, 

These blenches gave my heart another youth, 

And worst essays proved thee my best of love. 

Now all is done, save what shall have no end : 

Mine appetite I never more will grind 

On newer proof to try an older friend, 

A god in love to whom I am confined. 

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, 

Even to thy pure, and most, most loving breast. 

O for my sake do you with fortune chide, 
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 
That did not better for my life provide, 
Than public means, which public manners breeds. 
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 
And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand : 
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed ; 
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of eysell* 'gainst my strong infection, 
No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
No double penance to correct correction. 
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye 
Even that your pity is enough to cure me. 

In these sonnets we have not only the most touching con- 
fession of his errors, but some clue afforded to that neglect 
and contempt of his dramatic works which we have already 
noticed. He clearly regarded his profession of an actor as 
a degradation, as no doubt it was considered in the eye of 

* Vinegar. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 83 

those times. He probably regarded his dramas as mere 
compositions written to advance his fortune, and as stand- 
ing testimonies to that mode of life which he regarded with 
aversion. This, it is probable, was the cause why he so 
entirely neglected them, and turned, as it were, his very 
thoughts from them, as reminding him of many things, 
during the period of their production, which he would fain 
forget for ever. The very next sonnet, and the only one 
which I shall here indulge myself in transcribing, most 
strongly expresses this feeling, and the formation of that 
resolution to which he so inflexibly adhered to the day of 
his death. 

Your love and pity doth the impression fill, 

Which vulgar scandal stamped upon her brow : 

For what care I who calls me well or ill, 

So you o'ergreen my bad, my good allow 1 

You are my all-the-ioorld, and I must strive 

To know my shames and praises from your tongue ; 

None else to me, nor I to none alive 

That my steeled sense, or changes, right or wrong. 

In so profound abysm I throw all care 

Of others' voices, that my adder's sense 

To critic, and to flatterer stopped are. 

Mark how with my neglect I do dispense : — 

You are so strongly in my purpose bred 

That all the world besides, methinks they are dead. 

Impressed with the feelings and the history conveyed in 
these sonnets, I must confess that there was no spot con- 
nected with Shakspeare at Stratford that so strongly inter- 
ested me as Shottry, the little rustic village where Ann 
Hathaway was born, and where Shakspeare wooed, and 
whence he married her. The house in which he was born 
is turned into a butcher's shop ; his birth there was a mere 
accident, and the accidents of time have not added to the 
intrinsic interest of the place : the house which he built or 
improved for himself, and in which he spent the last years 



§4 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

of his life, was pulled down, and dispersed piece-meal by 
the infamous parson Gastrell,who thus " doomed himself to 
eternal fame" more thoroughly than the fool who fired the 
Temple of Diana ; but the birth-place and the marriage- 
place of Ann Hathaway, is just as it was ; and, excepting 
the tombs of Shakspeare and herself, the only authentic and 
unchanged traces of their existence here. I therefore has- 
tened away to Shottry the very first moment that I could 
get out of the inn. It is but a short walk to it across some 
pleasant meadows, and I pleased myself with thinking, as I 
strode along, with what delight Shakspeare in his youth 
trod the same path on his way to see his fair Ann Hathaway ; 
and how often, in his latter years, when he had renounced 
public life, and she was his " all-the-world," they might, led 
by the sweet recollections of the past, often stroll that way 
together, and perhaps visit some of their kindred under the 
same rustic roof. 

The village is a real rustic village indeed, consisting of a 
few farm-houses, and of half-timbered cottages of the most 
primitive construction, standing apart, one from the other, 
in their old gardens and orchards. Nothing can exceed the 
simplicity and quiet of this rustic hamlet. It is the beau 
ideal of Goldsmith's Auburn. The village public-house is 
the " Shakspeare Tavern," a mere cottage like the rest. No 
modern innovations, no improvements, seem to have come 
hither to disturb the image of the past times. The cottages 
stand apart from each other, in their gardens and orchard- 
crofts, and are just what the poets delight to describe. The 
country around is pleasant, though not very striking. Its 
great charm is its perfect rurality. Ann Hathaway's cot- 
tage stands at the farther end of this scattered and secluded 
hamlet, at the feet of pleasant uplands, and from its rustic 
casements you catch glimpses of the fine breezy ranges of 
the Ilmington and Meon hills, some miles southward ; and 
of Stratford church spire eastward peeping over its trees. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 85 

The cottage is along tenement of the most primitive cha- 
racter ; of timber framing, filled up with brick and plaster- 
work. Its doors are gray with age, and have the old-fash- 
ioned wooden latches, with a bit of wood nailed on the 
outside of the door to take hold of while you pull the string ; 
just such a latch as, no doubt, was on the door of Little Red 
Riding-Hood's grandmother, when the wolf said to the little 
girl, " pull the string, and you'll get in." 

The antiquity of the house is testified by the heads of the 
wooden pins which fasten the framing, standing up some 
inches from the walls, according to the rude fashion of the 
age, never having been cut off. The end of the cottage 
comes to the village road ; and the side which looks into the 
orchard is covered with vines and roses, andTosemary. The 
orchard is a spot all knolls and hollows, where you might 
imagine the poet, when he came here a-wooing, or in the 
after-days of his renown, when he came hither to see his 
wife's friends, and to indulge in day-dreams of the past, as 
he represents the king of Denmark 

Sleeping within mine orchard, 

My custom always of the afternoon — 

lying on the mossy turf, and enjoying the pleasant sunshine, 
and the flickering shadows of the old apple-trees. The 
orchard extends up the slope a good way ; then you come 
to the cottage garden, and then to another orchard. You 
walk up a little narrow path between hedges of box, and 
amongst long grass. All the homely herbs and flowers 
which grow about the real old-English cottage, and which 
Shakspeare delighted to introduce into his poetry — the 
rosemary, celandine, honeysuckle, marigold, mint, thyme, 
rue, sage, etc., meeting your eye as you proceed. 

The commentators on Shakspeare have puzzled them- 
selves wonderfully about some of the plainest matters of his 

8 



gg VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

text, and about none more than the identity of the dew- 
berry. In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania tells the 
fairies to be kind to Bottom : 

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ; 
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes ; 
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, 
With purple grapes, figs, and mulberries ; 
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, etc. 

These same dewberries have cost the expounders of his 
text a world of trouble. As apricots, grapes, and figs are 
very good things, they could not bring their fancies to 
believe that the fairies would feed Bottom on aught less 
dainty, even though he yearned hungrily after good oats 
and a bundle of hay. All kinds of fruits were run over in 
the scale of delicacies, and not finding any of the finer sorts 
which ever bore the name of dewberry, they at last sagely 
concluded that it must be a gooseberry, because the goose- 
berry is only once mentioned as a gooseberry in all his 
dramas. A wise conclusion ! What a pity that those 
laborious and ingenious commentators would but step 
occasionally out of their studies, and go into Shakspeare's 
own neighbourhood, and hear the peasantry there talk. 
They would not only have long ago discovered what a 
dewberry is, but might hear many a phrase and proverb, 
that would have thrown more light on the text of Shak- 
speare, than will ever stream in through a library window 
in half a century. A dewberry is a species of blackberry, 
but of a larger grain, of a finer acid, and having upon it a 
purple bloom like the violet plum. It is a fruit well known 
by that name to botanists (rubus cxsius), and by that name 
it has always been well known by the common people in 
the midland counties. As I walked round the orchard of 
Ann Hathaway, I was quite amused to see it growing 
plentifully on the banks ; and taking up a sprig of it with 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 87 

some berries on it, I asked almost every countryman and 
countrywoman whom I met during the day, what they 
called that fruit. In every instance, they at once replied, 
" the dewberry." While I was in that neighbourhood I 
repeatedly asked the peasantry if they knew such a thing as 
a dewberry. In every case they replied, " To be sure, it is 
like a blackberry, only its grains are larger, and it is more 
like a mulberry." A very good description. " Yes," said 
others, " it grows low on the banks ; it grows plentifully all 
about this country." So much for all the critical nonsense 
about the dewberry. 

I could not avoid noticing many such little touches of 
natural imagery with which Shakspeare has enriched the 
poetical portion of his text, as I strolled about this garden 
and orchard. In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv., 
Shakspeare says, 

The female ivy so 
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. 

Why the barky fingers of the elm ? Because the young 
shoots of the elm and those of the maple cover themselves 
with a singular corky bark, which rises in longitudinal 
ridges, of frequently more than a quarter of an inch high, 
and presenting a very singular appearance. It is a curious 
fact that the elm is the great natural growth of the country 
about Stratford, and must have been particularly familiar to 
Shakspeare's eye, and in this very orchard he must have 
seen plenty of the very images he has used. I pleased 
myself with imagining the quiet happiness which he had 
enjoyed with his Ann Hathaway in this very spot, while 
these rural images and happy illustrations silently flowed 
into his mind from the things around him. There was an 
old arbour of box, the trees of which had grown high and 
wild, having a whole wilderness of periwinkle at their feet ; 
and upon the wooden end of a shed forming one side of this 



83 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

arbour, grew a honeysuckle, which seemed as though it 
might have grown in the very days of Shakspeare, for it 
had all the character of a very old tree ; little of it showing 
any life, and its bark hanging from the stem in filaments of 
more than a foot long, like the tatters and beard of an 
ancient beggar. At the door looking into this orchard is 
a sort of raised platform up three or four steps with a 
seat upon it, so that the cottagers might sit and enjoy at 
once the breeze and the prospect of the orchard and fields 
beyond. There is a passage right through the house, with 
a very old high-backed bench of oak in it, said to have been 
there in Shakspeare's time, and old enough to have been 
there long before. The whole of the interior is equally 
simple and rustic. I have been more particular in speak- 
ing of this place, because perhaps at the very moment I 
write these remarks this interesting dwelling may be 
destroyed, and all that I have been describing have given 
way to the ravages of modern change. The place is sold, 
and perhaps the cottage of Ann Hathaway is now no 
more. A Mr. Barns, a farmer of the neighbouring hamlet 
of Luddington, has bought the whole property for 300/., and 
talks of pulling down the house at spring. He has already 
pulled down some of the neighbouring cottages, and built 
up a row of red staring ones in their places ; and already he 
has made an ominous gap into Ann Hathaway's orchard ! 
The Taylors, the old proprietors, who have lived in the 
cottage for many years, were gone, the very morning I was 
there, to Stratford, to sign the conveyance. 



PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SHAKSPEARE FAMILY. 

As I went to Shottry, I met with a little incident which 
interested me greatly by its unexpectedness. As I was 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 89 

about to pass over a stile at the end of Stratford into the 
fields leading to that village, I saw the master of the na- 
tional school mustering his scholars to their tasks. I stopped, 
being pleased with the look of the old man, and said, " You 
seem to have a considerable number of lads here ; shall you 
raise another Shakspeare from amongst them, think you ?" 
" Why," replied the master, " I have a Shakspeare now in 
the school." I knew that Shakspeare had no descendants 
beyond the second generation, and I was not aware that 
there was any of his family remaining. But it seems that the 
posterity of his sister Joan Hart, who is mentioned in his will, 
yet exist, part under her marriage name of Hart, at Tewkes- 
bury, and a family in Stratford of the name of Smith. 

"I have a Shakspeare here," said the master with evi- 
dent pride and pleasure. " Here, boys, here !" He quickly 
marshalled his laddish troop in a row, and said to me, "There 
now, sir, can you tell which is a Shakspeare ?" I glanced 
my eye along the line, and instantly fixing it on one boy, 
said, " That is the Shakspeare." « You are right," said the 
master ; " that is the Shakspeare : the Shakspeare cast of 
countenance is there. That is William Shakspeare Smith, 
a lineal descendant of the poet's sister." 

The lad was a fine lad of, perhaps, ten years of age ; and 
certainly the resemblance to the bust of Shakspeare, in the 
church at Stratford, is wonderful, considering he is not 
descended from Shakspeare himself, but from his sister, and 
that the seventh in descent. What is odd enough, whether 
it be mere accident or not, that the colour of the lad's eyes, 
a light hazel, is the very same as that given to those of the 
Shakspeare bust, which it is well known was originally 
coloured, and of which exact copies remain.. 

I gave the boy sixpence, telling him I hoped he would 
make as great a man as his ancestor (the best term I could 
lay hold of for the relationship, though not the true one), 
or, at all events, a good man. The boy's eyes sparkled at 

8* 



90 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 



the sight of the money, and the healthful joyous colour 
rushed into his cheeks ; his fingers continued making ac- 
quaintance with so large a piece of money in his pocket, 
and the sensation created by so great an event in the school 
was evident. It sounded oddly enough, as I was passing 
along the street in the evening, to hear some of these same 
schoolboys say to one another, " That is the gentleman who 
gave Bill Shakspeare sixpence." 

Which of all the host of admirers of Shakspeare, who has 
plenty of money, and does not know what to do with it, 
will think of giving that lad, one of the nearest living repre- 
sentatives of the great poet, a good education, and a fair 
chance to raise himself in the world ? The boy's father is 
a poor man, — if I be not fanciful, partaking somewhat of 
the Shakspeare physiognomy,* but who keeps a small shop, 
and ekes out his profits by making his house a " Tom-and- 
Jerry." He has other children, and complained of misfor- 
tune. He said that some years ago Sir Richard Phillips 
had been there, and promised to interest the public about 
him, but that -he never heard any more of it. Of the man's 
merits, or demerits, I know nothing; I only know that in 
the place of Shakspeare's birth, and where the town is full 
of "signs" of his glory, and where Garrick made that pom- 
pous jubilee, hailing Shakspeare as a " demi-god," and 
calling him " the god of our idolatry," and where thou- 
sands and even millions flock to do homage to the shrine 
of this " demi-god," and pour out deluges of verse of the 
most extravagant and sentimental nature in the public 
albums ; there, as is usual in such cases, the nearest of 
blood to the object of such vast enthusiasm are poor and 
despised : the flood of public admiration at its most tower- 

* Ireland, when, in 1793, making 1 collections for his "Views on the 
Avon," was much struck with the likeness to this bust in Thomas Hart, 
one of this family, who then lived in Shakspeare's house. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 91 

ing height, in its most vehement current, never for a mo- 
ment winds its course in the slightest degree to visit them 
with its refreshment, nor, of the thousands of pounds spent 
in the practice of this poetic devotion, does one bodle drop 
into their pockets. 

Garrick, as I have observed, once 

called the world to worship on the banks 
Of Avon, famed in song. Ah, pleasant proof 
That piety has still, in human hearts, 
Some place, — a spark or two not yet extinct. 
The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths; 
The mulberry-tree stood centre of the dance ; 
The mulberry-tree was hymned with dulcet strains ; 
And, from his touch-wood trunk, the mulberry-tree 
Supplied such relics as devotion holds 
Still sacred, and preserves with pious care. 
So 'twas a hallowed time : decorum reigned, 
And mirth without offence. No few returned, 
Doubtless much edified, and all refreshed. 

Cowper's Task, B. vi. 

But it does not appear that Garrick and his fellow-worship- 
pers troubled themselves at all about the descendants of the 
poet's sister. The object, in fact, seemed, at the moment, 
rather to worship Garrick even than Shakspeare. How 
then could any ray of sympathy diverge from two " demi- 
gods" to the humble relatives of one of them ? And why 
should it ? I hear learned utilitarians asking — why ? What 
should lead the ragged descendants of poets and philoso- 
phers to forsake self-dependence and look to the admirers of 
their ancestors for benefit ? What a shocking thing if they 
should, especially in a nation which ennobles whole lines 
for ever, and grants immense estates in perpetuity for the 
exploit of some man, who has won a battle which better 
never had been fought ! What ! shall such men, and shall 
whole troops of lawyers, who have truckled to the govern- 



g 2 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

inent of the day, and become the tools of despotism in a 
country dreaming that it is free — shall men who have 
merely piled up heaps of coin, and purchased large tracks 
of earth, by plodding in the city dens of gain, or dodging 
on the Stock Exchange, — shall such men be ennobled, and 
their line for ever, and shall the men who have left a legacy 
of immortal mind to their country, leave also to their fami- 
lies an exclusive poverty and neglect ? Will our very phi- 
losophic utilitarians tell us why this should be ? 

It might also be whispered that it would not be much 
more irrational to extend some of that enthusiasm and 
money, which is now wasted on empty rooms and spurious 
musty relics, on at least trying to benefit and raise in the 
scale of society, beings who have the national honour to be 
relics and mementos of the person worshipped, as well as 
old chairs, and whitewashed butchers' shops. Does it never 
occur to the votaries of Shakspeare, that these are the only 
sentient, conscious, and rational things connected with his 
memory which can feel a living sense of the honour con- 
ferred on him, and possess a grateful knowledge that the 
mighty poet of their house has not sung for them in vain, 
and that they only in a world overshadowed with his glory 
are not unsoothed by its visitings ?* But the poetic vene- 
ration of the public need not be reduced to this severe trial 
— there are plenty of relics of Shakspeare (so called) for 
them to wonder and exclaim over. 

* It appears from the town records and inscriptions in the church, that 
the Hathaways were very respectable people at Shottry for generations 
after Shakspeare's time ; and that the Smiths Were amongst the principal 
people of the town. One, contemporary with Shakspeare, was three 
times mayor. Three of them appear in inscriptions as benefactors to the 
town ; and others as witnesses and trustees, both in deeds executed by 
Shakspeare, and also by his granddaughter Lady Barnard, his last de- 
scendant; so that a family friendship was evidently maintained to the 
last. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 93 



RELICS OF SHAKSPEARE IN STRATFORD. 

In front of the Town-hall, in a niche, stands the full-length 
figure of Shakspeare, cast for the jubilee, and presented by 
Garrick to the corporation ; at which time this Town-hall, 
a new erection, was dedicated also by Garrick to the memory 
of Shakspeare. " The bard," to use the words of Wheller, 
the historian of Stratford, " is represented in a graceful atti- 
tude, as on his monument in Westminster Abbey, resting 
upon some volumes placed on a pedestal, ornamented with 
three busts, viz., Henry the Fifth, Richard the Third, and 
Queen Elizabeth. Upon a scroll, to which he points, are 
the following lines, judiciously selected from his own Mid- 
summer Night's Dream : — 

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shapes : and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 

Upon the pedestal beneath, are these words from Hamlet : — 

Take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again. 

Within the hall is a painting of Shakspeare, by Wilson, 
wherein he is represented sitting in an antique chair, and 
upon the ground lie several books and MSS., as North's 
Plutarch's Lives, Hollinshed's Chronicles, Cynthio's Novels, 
etc., being some of the authors which Shakspeare consulted. 

Opposite to this Town-hall is a house occupied by a Mr. 
Reason, who has a sign in front of it, announcing that there 
is kept a collection of articles which were in the house where 
the poet was born, and remained there till Mary Hornby, 



94 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

the mother of the present Mrs. Reason, was obliged to leave 
it on account of the proprietor raising the rent so much in 
consequence of the numerous visits to it. She at first gave 
ten, then twenty, then forty pounds a year for it ; but the 
tide of visiters increasing, the demand of the landlord still 
rose with it, till either the man outvalued the income, or the 
patience of Mary Hornby gave way. She gave notice to 
quit the house, and another person immediately took it. A 
violent feud arose between the out-going and the in-coming 
exhibitor. Mary Hornby, of course, stripped the house of 
every article that had been shown as Shakspeare's. But 
she did not stop there. She deliberately, or perhaps, as will 
appear probable, rather hastily, took a brush and a pail of 
whitewash, and washed over all the millions of inscribed 
names of adoring visiters on the walls ! At one fell swoop, 
out went the illustrious signatures of kings, queens, princes, 
princesses, ambassadors, ambassadresses, lords, ladies, 
knights, poets, philosophers, statesmen, tragedians, come- 
dians, bishops, lord chancellors, lord chief justices, privy 
counsellors, senators, and famous orators ; all the sweet 
tribe of duchesses, countesses, baronesses, honourables, and 
dishonourables, — out went they altogether, with as little 
remorse as if death himself had been wielding the besom of 
destruction, instead of Mary Hornby her whitewash brush ! 
Mary Hornby, having executed this sublime extinction 
of so many dignities, marched out with a lofty sense of the 
vacuum she left behind, carrying away with her the Albums 
into the bargain. The new tenant on entering was struck 
with a speechless consternation ! In " the immortal bard's" 
own words, all the precious relics had 

Vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
And left not a wreck behind. 

Nothing at all but four bare walls ! What was to be done ! 
It was still Shakspeare's birth-place — but it was a very 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 95 

naked one indeed, — all the imposing relics were gone, and 
a rival shop was set up with them ! She looked upon her- 
self as swindled. She had a higher rent to pay, with a 
diminished stock, and a formidable rival, and she accord- 
ingly raised a loud clamour in the ears of the landlord. 
The landlord began to bluster with Mary Hornby, and 
claimed the goods as heir-looms, — as part and parcel of 
the property ; but the lawyers told him a different story. 
He then claimed the Albums, and commenced proceedings 
to recover them, but with no better success. Money was 
then offered for them, but money could not buy them ; so 
it was absolutely necessary to commence a-new with blank 
walls and blank books. It was a melancholy coming down. 
Where was the chair called Shakspeare's chair, which had 
stood in a niche in the room, and the arms of which alone 
had been sold for twenty-three guineas ? Where were 
those two fine old high-backed chairs which were said to 
be given to Shakspeare by the Earl of Southampton, with 
the Earl's coronet and supporters (animals having an odd 
look, between lions and men, with big heads) upon them ? 
Where was the little chair of the same kind, called Hamlet's 
chair — the son of Shakspeare, who died when twelve 
years old ? Where was that precious old lantern made of 
the glass of the house where Shakspeare died ? The bust 
taken and coloured accurately from the bust in the church? 
The portrait of a boy, with a curious high-laced cap on his 
head and an embroidered doublet, called John Hathaway, 
the brother of Ann Hathaway ? The painting said to be 
done by Shakspeare's nephew, William Shakspeare Hart, 
representing Shakspeare in the character Petruchio ? The 
cup, and the knotted walking-stick made from the crab-tree 
under which he slept in Bidford Fields?* Where the 

* Bidford is a village about six miles from Stratford, where it is said in 
Shakspeare's time was a set of rustic topers who were in the habit of 
challenging the residents of neighbouring places to drinking-matches, and 



gg VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

various pieces of carving from his bedstead ? That old 
basket-hilted sword which looked as though it had been 
buried for a century or two on the field of Edge-hill or 
Worcester, but which was, in fact, no such thing, but the 
veritable sword with which Shakspeare performed in Ham- 
let, and which the Prince Regent had wanted so much to 
buy in 1S15, saying — " he knew the family very well that 
gave it to Shakspeare ?" Where was that ? Ay, and still 
more, where was that grand old piece of carving which 
used to be over the mantel-piece, coloured and gilt, and 
representing David fighting with Goliath between the ad- 
verse armies ; and over their heads, on a flying label or 
garter, this inscription, said, and sufficiently testified by the 
splendour of the verse, to be written by " the immortal 
bard" himself? — 

Goliath comes with sword and spear, 

And David with his sling ; 
Although Goliath rage and swear, 

Down David doth him bring. 

Samuel 17th. An. Dom. 1606.* 



that on one occasion Shakspeare was amongst the young men of Strat- 
ford who accepted such a challenge. That, on returning homewards 
defeated, the Stratfordians lay down under a crab-tree still standing by 
the road-side, about half a mile from Bid ford, where they slept from 
Saturday night till Monday morning, when they were roused by work- 
men going to their labour. Shakspeare was the last to wake ; and when 
his companions urged him to return and renew the contest, he exclaimed 
— " No ! I have enough. I have drank with 

Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hilbro\ Hungry Grafton, 
Dudging Exhatt, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford" 

* This was there at the time of Ireland's visit. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 97 

The iron box that held the poet's will ; Shakspeare's bench ; 
pieces of his mulberry -tree ; the box given to him by the 
Prince of Castile ; a piece of the very matchlock with which 
he shot the deer ; the portraits of Sir John Bernard and his 
lady Elizabeth, the granddaughter of Shakspeare ; the por- 
trait of Charlotte Clopton in her trance ; the pedigree, and 
the will — where were they all ? Carried off by the indig- 
nant and vindictive Mary Hornby, who was too selfish to 
pay more than £40 a-year for the house in which so great 
a genius was born ; for all the great names of all the illus- 
trious people, from all quarters of the world, written by the 
blacklead pencils of every known manufactory, and all 
these precious relics to boot, — such a collection as was 
never yet seen on this side of Loretto. 

But the ravages of this modern Goth and Vandal, Mary 
Hornby, could not be entirely repaired — they might, how- 
ever, be in some degree mitigated ; and as the disconsolate 
successor ruminated on the means — lo ! a most happy and 
inspired idea occurred to her. Mary Hornby had been in 
a passion, and perhaps she had forgotten to put any size 
into her whitewash. A brush was instantly applied to the 
walls, — the hope became at once a certainty ! — Mary 
Hornby had omitted the size, and by gentle and continued 
friction of the brush, the millions of pencilled names once 
more appeared in all their original clearness ! The relics 
were at once pronounced — humbug ; — new Albums were 
opened, and the Shakspeare show-room was restored to its 
ancient value. In fact, this house, which was some years 
ago purchased of Joan Shakspeare's descendants, the 
Harts, with other property, for £250, is now said to be 
worth £2000. 



98 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 



THE SHAKSPEARE ALBUMS. 

Amongst the innumerable signatures on the walls, the 
woman points you out that of Schiller as that of the Schiller, 
but it is written in Roman and not German hand. She also 
points out about a yard from the floor that of Edmund 
Kean, in a large hand, and tells you that he kneeled down 
to write it, saying, — " that as most people were ambitious 
to place their names as high as possible, he would place his 
low, and thus it would be the longer unencroached upon." 
It is now covered all over with a mob of names, and even 
written over and over. Indeed, the whole surface of the 
walls, from top to bottom, all round the room, nay, even 
the ceiling is covered thick with names upon names, which, 
if transcribed, would fill many large volumes. 

There is nothing more curious than the signatures and 
the characteristic combinations of signatures which albums 
kept at such places present. I generally copy a few of the 
most striking as I turn them over ; and here is a sample, 
from those in the albums both at the house where Shaks- 
peare was born, and those formerly carried off thence by 
Mary Hornby, and now at the house of her daughter, Mrs. 
Reason. 

1813. March 5th. — John Howard Payne, New York. 
Aug. 13th. — Dr. Rees. 

Sep. 3d. — Henry, Bishop of London. 
Lord Cowper. 
Mrs. Opie. 
Oct. 1st. — William Rathhone, Liverpool. 
1815. July 27th. — Washington Irving. 
Aug. 17th. — George P. R. and 
Col. M'Mahon. 
26th. — William, Duke of Clarence. 
Arthur, Duke of Wellington. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 99 

1 816. Aug. 22d. — Duke and Duchess of St. Albans, etc. 

28th. — Byron. 
1821. Aug. Mr. W. Stewart Rose. 

Mr. W. Lockhart. 
Sir Walter Scott, etc. 

1821. Oct. 14th William Jerdan, Brompton, London. 

To Nature, sages in the earlier time — 

To Nature, men, even in each savage clime, 

Before revealed a God, all bowed the knee ; 

Here where the High-Priest lived, oh be it mine 

To breathe one prayer, that fervent one be thine, 

And Shakspeare, next to Nature, given to thee. — W. J. 

1827. Prince Plickler Muskaw. 

1829. Due de Chartres. 

1831. April 22d. — Helena, Grand Duchess of Russia. 

Countess of Nesselrode. 

Prince Gagarin, and suite. 

1831. July 19th. — James Montgomery. 

1832. June 25th.— A. Sedgwick. 

W. Whewell. 

1835. Sep. 18th. — Jane Porter. 

N. P. Willis. 
Oct. 1st. — Countess Guiccioli. 

Dr. Dionysius Lardner. 

1836. June 26th. — Prince of Orange. 

Alexander, Prince of the Netherlands. 

1837. July 1st. — Edwin Forrest. 

Catherine Norton Forrest. 

1838. Aug. 28th Countess of Blessington. 

Comte d'Orsay. 
30th .. — Charles Matthews. 
E. Vestris. 

After all, the church is the most interesting place in Strat- 
ford connected with Shakspeare, because you have here 
proofs of him and his family connexions beyond all question. 
There is the well-known bust of him in a niche close to the 
communion rail, on the north wall of the chancel, placed 
on a cushion, holding a pen in his right hand, and his left 



100 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON". 

upon a scroll. Above his head are his arms, and on each 
side of them a small sitting figure ; one holding in his right 
hand a spade, the other, whose eyes are closed, to indicate 
mourning, has one hand upon a skull, and in the other an 
inverted torch. Beneath the cushion is engraved this dis- 
tich : 

JUDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATUM, ARTE MARONEM, 
TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MffiRIT, OLYMPUS HABET. 

And on a tablet underneath, these lines — 

Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast ! 
Read if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast 
Within this monument, Shakspeare, with whome 
Quicke Nature dide ; whose name doth deck ye tombe 
Far more than coste ; sicth all ytt he hath writt 
Leaves living art but page to serve his witt. 

Obiit Ano. Doi. 1616, ^Etatis 53. Die 23. Ap. 

This monument is said to have been raised very soon 
after Shakspeare's death. Wheeler thinks it probable that 
it was erected by Dr. John Hall, his son-in-law and exe- 
cutor, or relations, at a time when his features were per- 
fectly fresh in every one's memory, or, perhaps, with the 
assistance of an original picture, if any such ever existed. 
He adds, that some verses by Leonard Digges, a cotem- 
porary of the poet, prove that it was here before 1623; that 
is, within seven years of his death. Sir William Dugdale, 
in his Diary, states the artist to have been Gerard Johnson, 
" a Hollander, a tombe-maker, who lived in St. Thomas's 
Apostells." It is undoubtedly the most authentic repre- 
sentation of him that we possess, and we have some addi- 
tional argument for its resemblance to the original in its 
likeness to the print in the folio edition of his works printed 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 101 

in 1623, which Ben Jonson, in his verses under it, plainly 
asserts to be a great likeness. Yet, when we call to mind 
how little notice was attracted to this spot for years after 
Shakspeare's decease, and how easily satisfied are country 
people in a piece of monumental art, we cannot entertain 
too sanguine notions that we have a very characteristic 
representation of Shakspeare before us. 

The head must fulfil and confirm all the faith of the phre- 
nologists ; it is a noble structure, but the remarkable gravity 
and massiness of the features do not answer to our notions, 
of that soul of mirth, and whim, and passion, which must 
have shone through the outer veil of Shakspeare. The 
character is that of a sensible, grave, and benevolent man. 

It is well known that the bust was originally painted to 
resemble life ; that the eyes were light hazel ; the hair and 
beard auburn. The dress consisted of a scarlet doublet, 
over which was a loose black gown, without sleeves ; the 
lower part of the cushion before him was crimson, and the 
upper green, with gilt tassels. In 174S this monument 
was carefully repaired, and the original colours of the bust 
restored, the expense being defrayed by the receipts of the 
acting of Othello at the old Town-hall, which were given 
by Mr. Ward, the manager, grandfather of Mrs. Siddons. 
In 1793 the bust and figures above it, together with the 
tomb of John a Combe, were, to correct the false taste of 
the erectors, by the perpetration of the worse taste of alter- 
ing an original monument of so much consequence, painted 
white, at the request of Mr. Malone. 

Below, and in front of the monument, we have, facing 
the communion-rail, a row of inscribed flags, covering the 
remains of himself, his wife Ann Hathaway, his daughter 
Susanna, and her husband, Dr. John Hall. We see the 
rude sculpture of that characteristic and awful warning 
which he left to be placed over his remains. 

9* 



102 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

Good Frend for Jesus SAKE forbeare 
To diGG T— E dust encloased HERE 

T 

Blese be T — E Man -spares T — E S stones 

y 
t 

And curst be He - moves my Bones. 

y 

That this hearty malediction was not unnecessary ; that 
Shakspeare knew the freedoms that the worthy church- 
wardens, in their ignorant authority, were accustomed to 
use with the dead in his native place, is strikingly proved 
by the disgraceful liberty taken with the tomb of his daughter 
Susanna. Besides her arms, Hall impaling Shakspeare, 
and the following inscription still remaining : — Here lyeth 
ye body of Susanna, wife to John Hall, gent., the daughter 
of William Shakspeare, gent. She deceased ye 11th of 
July a. d. 1649, aged 66, — there was originally this 
epitaph : 

Witty above her sexe ; but that's not all ; 
Wise to salvation was good Mistris Hall ; 
Something of Shakespere was in that, but this 
Wholly of him with whom she's now in bliss. 
Then passenger, ha'st ne're a teare, 

To weepe with her that wept with all 1 
That wept, yet set herselfe to chere 

Them up with comforts cordiall. 
Her love shall live, her mercy spread, 
When thou hast ne're a teare to shed. 

These verses were long ago obliterated to make way for 
another inscription, carved on the same stone, for Richard 
Watts of Ryhm Clifford, a person in no way related to the 
Shakspeare family, and who, no doubt, was buried in the 
grave of Mrs. Hall. Thus it is probable that had not 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 103 

Shakspeare taken care of his bones in his lifetime, they 
would long ago have been dug up, and added to the enor- 
mous pile which used to lie in the charnel-house, and which 
was seen, so late as the year 1793, by Mr. Ireland. 

After reading the Latin verses on the tomb of Ann Hath- 
away, we glance into the eastern corner, just by, and lo ! 
the tomb of John a Combe, with his effigy stretched upon 
it. It is said that this man was a thorough-paced usurer. 
He resided at Welcome Lodge, and afterwards at the Col- 
lege ; that is, a mansion so called, which, at the time that 
Stratford church was a collegiate church, was the residence 
of the chanting priests and choristers. This, after the dis- 
solution by Henry VIIL, was granted to the Earl of War- 
wick, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, and at his 
attainder by Queen Mary, was resumed by the crown ; 
then let to Richard Coningsby, Esq., and finally sold to 
John Combe, Esq., who died there without family in 1614, 
two years before Shakspeare. It is said that, during Shak- 
speare 's residence in the later years of his life at Stratford, 
John Combe and he were on very sociable terms, and 
Combe, presuming on Shakspeare's good nature and his 
own moneyed importance, frequently importuned the poet 
to write him an epitaph, which, to the old gentleman's vast 
indignation, he did thus : — 

Ten in the hundred lies here engraved, 

'Tis a hundred to ten if his soul be saved. 

If any one asks who lies in this tomb — 

" Oho !" quoth the devil, " 'tis my John a Combe !" 

As if to obviate the effect of the witty sarcasm of the in- 
exorable poet, who would not give him any other passport 
to posterity than what he justly deserved, we find embla- 
zoned not only on John a Combe's tomb, but on the gold- 
lettered tablets of the church, that he left by will, annually 



104 YlslT T0 STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

to be paid for ever : 1 1, for two sermons to be preached in 
this church ; 6/. 13.9. 4d. "to buy ten gowndes for ten poore 
people ;" and 100/. to be let out to fifteen poor tradesmen 
of the borough, from three years to three years, at the rate 
of 50s. per annum, which increase was to be distributed to 
the inmates of the almshouse, — adding upon his tomb in 
large letters, virtus post funeka vivit. But spite of all 
this; spite of thus charging on his tomb only two and a 
half instead often per cent. ; spite of this emblazonment in 
marble and gold before the eyes of all churchgoers, the 
witty words of the poet, scattered only on the winds, not 
merely survive, but are in everybody's heart and mouth all 
round Stratford, and will be till the day of doom. 

This church stands pleasantly, between Stratford and the 
Avon, surrounded by trees, with a pleached avenue up to 
the porch door. The chancel is of beautiful architecture, 
which has lately been restored with great care. It also 
contains some grotesque and curious carving on the seats, 
which used to be occupied by the chanting priests, and now 
serve the clergy at visitations. 



CHARLECOTE HOUSE. 



No person who feels a lively interest in the history and 
haunts of Shakspeare, will think he has seen all that has 
drawn him to his native neighbourhood till he has seen 
Charlecote, the abode of that Sir Thomas Lucy who drove 
Shakspeare, for his deer stealing and his satirical sallies, 
from the obscurity of his original condition and calling, to 
London and universal fame. Charlecote lies on the banks 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 105 

of the Avon, about four miles from Stratford. It is a plea- 
sant walk along a pleasant level road, through a country 
well shaded with large elms, and presenting on one hand 
rich meadows, and on the other as rich corn-lands. It was 
a fine autumn morning when I set off to walk there, and I 
pleased myself, as in going to Shottry, that I was treading 
the ground Shakspeare had trod many a time, and gazed 
on the same scenery, if not on the very identical objects. 
As I passed over the bridge, going out of the town, I said, 
" It was here that Shakspeare passed in his way to Charle- 
eote, to affix those merry verses to Sir Thomas's park-gate, 
which so nettled the old knight ; and on many another 
occasion paused to gaze up and down the quiet-flowing 
Avon, as I do now." The woods of Charlecote began to 
rise in view before me, and presently the house itself, in 
front of them, stood full in view, and made me exclaim, 
"Ay, there is the very place still where Shakspeare en- 
countered the angry old knight in his hall." A foot-path 
led me across a field into the park, and I found myself at 
the entrance of a long avenue of limes, which led towards 
the house, but not to it. It was terminated by a figure, 
which appeared to beckon to you. As I advanced, I met a 
country lad ; " So," I said, " this, I suppose, is where Shak- 
speare came for some of Sir Thomas Lucy's deer 1 You 
have heard of Shakspeare, I warrant you." " Yes," said 
the lad, " often and often, and yonder he is upon a deer 
that he took." « What, Shakspeare ?" " Yes, sir, Shak- 
speare." I went on towards the image, wondering at the 
oddity of taste which could induce the Lucys to place an 
image of Shakspeare there, and with the deer too ! When 
I came near, behold it was a leaden statue of poor innocent 
Diana. She was in the attitude of the Apollo Belvidere, 
having apparently just discharged an arrow and watching 
its career, still holding aloft the bowhand, and grasping the 
centre of the bow. Close to her side was the figure of a 



106 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

fallow deer ; and the simple country people had converted 
her into Shakspeare. That this odd mistake did not rest 
with the boy, I satisfied myself by asking every country 
man and woman that I met in the neighbourhood what 
that image was, and all answered, " Shakspeare on a deer." 
I suppose that, as the knees of the goddess are a little bent 
and the deer placed close to her left side, they had got the 
notion that it meant to represent Shakspeare riding away 
on the deer that he had caught. Even a Scotch travelling 
tea-merchant that I fell in with, told me the same story. I 
asked him whether he had ever been at the statue and ex- 
amined it. He replied he had. " And did you not observe," 
I asked, " that it was a woman, with a woman's bosom, in 
a woman's dress, and with a crescent on her brow ?" " In 
troth," said the man, " I didna' just notice that noo." So 
completely has the notion of its being meant for Shakspeare 
taken hold of the people's fancies, that they see nothing in 
it but Shakspeare, spite of sex and dress ; and the Scotch- 
man thought the crescent on the brow of the image merely 
meant that Shakspeare stole the deer by moonlight ! 

Charlecote-House stands pleasantly on the banks of the 
Avon, where it makes a bend. One side looks down upon 
the river and towards Stratford ; the opposite front looks 
into the old court, now a garden, and in part of which stands 
a fine old gate-house, which the present proprietor, George 
Lucy, Esq., intends to restore, and fit up in accordant style. 
This front is entered by a porch, built to admit Queen Eliza- 
beth when she paid a visit to Sir Thomas. The house was 
built by the Sir Thomas of Shakspeare notoriety, but has 
been much enlarged and embellished by the present Mr. 
Lucy, who has built two noble rooms facing the river, — a 
dining and drawing-room, — and furnished the whole with 
great taste. 

The park is finely wooded with the natural growth of this 
part of the country, elms of a large size, and is nobly stocked 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON AVON. 107 

with fallow deer. Mrs. Lucy told me that it was a very- 
common and perpetually repeated mistake that it was from 
this park that Shakspeare stole the deer, but that it was ac- 
tually from the old park of Ful brook on the Warwick-road, 
where Fulbrook Castle formerly stood, which ground is now 
disparked. This accords with Mr. Ireland's statements. It 
was, however, in this hall that he was tried. 

The entrance hall, the scene of Shakspeare's examination, 
is a fine room, with a grained oaken roof, having been re- 
stored with admirable taste ; and contains objects which can- 
not be looked on without great interest. The family paint- 
ings are collected, and well disposed around it, with others 
connected with the history of the family. 

On the ample mantel-piece are the large, old-fashioned 
initials of Sir Thomas Lucy, ^ a ]£,, raised and gilt ; and 
the date of the building of the hall, 1558. Upon this mantel- 
piece also stands a cast of the bust of Sir Thomas, taken 
from his monument in the church. There is also a painting 
of him, sitting at a table with his lady ; in a black velvet 
dress with slashed sleeves, large bunches at the knees, of a 
zigzag pattern, in black-and-white stripes ; light-coloured 
roses in his shoes, and with a ruff and cuffs of point lace. 
The portrait and bust bear a striking resemblance to each 
other ; and though they do not give us any reason to sup- 
pose him such an imbecile as Shakspeare in his witty re- 
venge has represented Justice Shallow, they have an air of 
formal conceit and self-sufficiency that accord wonderfully 
with our idea of the country knight who would look on the 
assault of his deer as a most heinous offence, and would be 
very likely to hold his dignity sorely insulted by the saucy 
son of a Stratford woolcomber, who had dared to affix a 
scandalous satire on his park-gate, and to make him ridicu- 
lous to all the country. 

After all, what Sir Thomas did was just what nine-tenths 
of the country gentlemen of that or this day would have 



10 8 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

done in like case. He appears to have dealt gently with 
the young man in the first instance ; and it was not until 
the ugly verses, of — 

A parliament member, a justice of peace, 

At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse, etc. 

were fixed on his gate by the vindictive pride of the embryo 
poet, that he began to threaten him with the serious visita- 
tion of the law. The only singularity of the case is, that Sir 
Thomas had stumbled on a great poet by the merest chance, 
and that before either he or anybody, even the poet himself, 
knew that he were one, and thereby roused him, as the 
Edinburgh Review roused Byron, to a full consciousness 
and demonstration of his hidden strength. Who can tell 
whether, had it not been for the agency of Sir Thomas and 
the Edinburgh Review, we might at this moment have been 
possessed of the noble poems of Shakspeare and of Byron ? 
But, as the Scriptures say, " Offences must needs come, but 
wo unto those by whom they do come." So the Review 
and Sir Thomas have alike won a notoriety that they never 
dreamed of, by starting a lion where they supposed them- 
selves pursuing a very different beast. 

I have frequently heard it said that all which Shakspeare 
asserted of Sir Thomas Lucy was true, and that his 
descendants continued to this day pretty much the same, 
and always went by the name of Shallow. It is a luckless 
doom to fall under the bann of an irritated poet, and such a 
poet as Shakspeare. " The daggers which he spoke, though 
he used none," were sure to stick fast in the wounded name, 
and the vengeance which he took on the original offender, 
must descend, in some degree, to his posterity. There will 
never want that spice of malice in the popular mind which 
delights to believe all that common prejudice delights to 
promulgate in such cases, and I can conceive few greater 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 109 

curses falling on an innocent family, than the brand of folly 
thus fixed upon it by the withering sarcasm of indignant 
genius. Who does not shrink from the very idea of being 
born under such a stigma ? Who could hope to bear up 
against it unscathed in the great race of life ? Who can 
tell the blasting and deadening, and dwarfing influence of 
such an actual finger of bitter and burning scorn, held up 
against you and your children ? When, therefore, I beheld 
the pleasant abode of the Lucys, and saw the evidences of 
taste and refinement about it, and heard what I did of the 
present family, I could not help feeling how awful is the 
clinging curse of an incensed poet, and how fearfully unjust 
he may become to whole generations of guiltless spirits, in 
the unrestrained indulgence of his revenge on its immediate 
object. 

It was a high and sincere pleasure to me to find the 
present descendants of Sir Thomas Lucy the very reverse 
of all that Shakspeare would persuade us that he was. On 
all sides, and from all classes of people, I heard the most 
excellent character of them. They were described as amia- 
ble, intelligent ; as of the most domestic habits, and as 
spending the chief portion of their time on their estate here. 
The poor spoke of them with affection for their kindness. I 
had not the pleasure to find Mr. Lucy at home ; but the 
house itself bore everywhere the most unequivocal testimo- 
nies of his taste : and I have rarely met with a lady that 
interested me more by her agreeable manners, intelligence, 
and tone of mind, than Mrs. Lucy, a sister of Lady Wil- 
loughby de Broke, of Compton-Verney, in the same neigh- 
bourhood. 

Mr. Lucy has enriched Charlecote-House with a select 
collection of paintings ; and as the house, owing to the 
domestic habits of the family, is not commonly shown, it 
may be acceptable to some of my readers to have a passing 
mention of them. 

10 



HO VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

In the hall, however, which we will mention first, the 
pictures are, as I have said, chiefly family ones. Over the 
fire-place is a large family-piece — Sir Thomas, the grandson 
of old Sir Thomas, his lady, and six children, by Cornelius 
Janson, done while on a visit here. Sir Thomas has a mild 
contemplative look. His hair is of a sandy hue ; his beard 
of the same colour, and peaked. The two youngest boys 
have also portraits as grown men in the hall, — Sir Fulke 
and Sir Richard Lucy. 

There is a curious old view of the house and gardens in 
their original state ; that is, in the state in which Shaks- 
peare would see them. Captain Thomas Lucy and his 
lady, by Lely. This lady he left a widow, and she after- 
wards married the Duke of Northumberland. 

In the library — portraits of Charles I. and II., Arch- 
bishop Laud, and Lord Strafford, by Henry Stone. Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury, by Isaac Oliver. A small, swarthy 
countenance, small dark and quick eyes, extremely black 
hair, and black mustachios, indicate in a lively manner the 
brisk and fiery spirit of this celebrated man. Here are also 
portraits of Henry VIII. ; Rich, Earl of Holland ; Mar- 
quess of Mantua, by Raffaelle ; Sir Thomas Lucy again, in 
his youth ; Isabelle, wife of the Emperor Charles V. ; and 
the Lord Keeper Coventry. There are also in this room 
eight fine ebony chairs inlaid with ivory, two cabinets and 
a couch of the same, said to have been brought from Kenil- 
worth, and to have been a present of Queen Elizabeth to 
Leicester. 

In the drawing-room — Tenier's Wedding, painted by 
himself, purchased by the present Mr. Lucy for 1100/., and 
for which he has refused 1300/. Cassandra delivered 
from captivity, by Guercino. Tempest, by Mole. Henry II. 
of France. Samson pulling down the temple, and Samson 
and the lion. Marketing parties going and returning, by 
Wouverman. Landscape by Cuyp. St. Cecilia, by Do- 
menichino. Landscape, by Hobbima. Ditto, by Berghem, 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. HI 

1619. Interior of a room, by Peter de Hogh. Madonna 
and child, by Vandyke. Watermill and cattle, by Paul 
Potter. Here are also busts, by Behnes, of the present Mr. 
and Mrs. Lucy ; and a splendid gold cup made for George 
IV., richly studded with jewels. 

In the dining-room — Battle of a cock and turkey, by 
Ulnoebocker. Still-life, — cock and gardener, by Jacob 
Jordans. An arrest, by Peter Valentine. Woman spin- 
ning, said to be by Raffaelle in his early style. Horses, by 
Wouverman. 

In Mrs. Lucy's morning-room there are a few good paint- 
ings. St. Catherine and a Magdalene. Christ's head, by 
Carradocio. But the most beautiful thing, and one of the 
most beautiful in the whole house, is the portrait of a female 
holding a cup in one hand, with the other placed upon it — 
her beautiful face full of a melancholy sentiment, with rich 
golden locks hanging on her shoulders. The subject and 
the artist are alike unknown. Mrs. Lucy found it in the 
house, and had it cleaned ; and it certainly is one of the 
most divine things ever seen. The beauty of the whole 
countenance — the fine large eyes full of thought and sor- 
row — the high rich forehead — the glorious head, and the 
pure and deep sentiment of the whole, mark the hand of 
the master, and are worthy of Raffaelle himself. It is a 
being radiant with youth and beauty, and rendered irresisti- 
bly attractive by the soul and the sublime sorrow breathed 
through and breathing from it. Mrs. Lucy was inclined to 
believe it a Niobe, but to my feeling it could be nothing 
else but one of the noble women who ministered to our Sa- 
viour — a Mary, a Magdalene, or the penitent and nameless 
woman who " washed his feet with her tears, and wiped 
them with the hairs of her head." * Such a being, in the sub- 

* The old painters make Mary Magdalene this woman, hut there is no 
evidence of it in the Gospels. Three of the evangelists declare that this 



112 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

limity of her grief, so far beyond any subject of the Grecian 
mythology, inasmuch as the grief of any natural bereave- 
ment, however agonizing, falls short in its solemn grandeur 
of that profound sorrow and shame which surprise and 
overwhelm a noble soul when it becomes aware of the ori- 
ginal purity of beauty which once was its own, and how 
much " its inner self it has abused," — can only be con- 
ceived and expressed by a spirit of a similar elevation. 
These circumstances point out this beautiful female as be- 
longing to the Gospel history, and to the pencil of a great 
master. 

At a short distance, in the park, stands the little church 
of Charlecote ; and it is well worthy of a visit from the 
stranger. It contains the monuments of the Lucys, and they 
are some of the richest and most beautifully executed to be 
found in any of our country churches. There, too, you see 
the hatchments of the different knights, with their lucies 
(the three fishes — pikes) in the escutcheon, made so noto- 
rious by Shakspeare. Old Sir Thomas lies on "his tomb in 
effigy ^ and his lady by his side. It is from this effigy that 
the bust in the hall has been taken, with its ruff, and peaked 
beard cut square at the end. 

If Sir Thomas has been pretty well misrepresented by 
the waggish wit of Shakspeare,* we must believe that his 

anointing took place at Bethany, and John says it was by Mary the sister 
of Martha. The others do not name the woman ; and Luke says it oc- 
curred at Nain. 

* John Fox, the martyrologist, was received by Sir Thomas at the time 
when he was obliged to fly for his life on account of his religion, in 
Mary's reign, and was deserted by every one besides. It is said that Sir 
Thomas took care to have a good equivalent for his protection, by making 
Fox the tutor to his children, and that when that end was served, he dis- 
missed him with little ceremony, and no care for his future provision. 
Admitting all this, it is evident still, that Sir Thomas gave him that 
shelter at a critical time, which no one else would give, and in so far was 
before his age. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 113 

lady has not been the less so by the fragment of a ballad 
which has been preserved by Professor Barnes, taken down 
as an old woman sung it at an inn at Stratford, and attri- 
buted to Shakspeare, in which she is described as a most 
unfaithful wife. If any faith is to be put in the epitaph 
engraved on this tomb, which was written by Sir Thomas 
himself — " as by him that did best know what hath been 
written to be true," — she must have been, on the contrary, 
a very exemplary woman : " a woman," he says, " so gar- 
nished with virtue as not to be bettered, and hardly to be 
equalled by any." The tradition is, that she went by the 
name of " the good Lady Lucy," and Newton in his " Me- 
moirs of Pious Women," gives her an extraordinary cha- 
racter for virtue and benevolence. 

Sir Thomas's son and successor, who appears to have 
only survived him five years, lies in his stately tomb by 
himself. His lady, in a black hood, is placed in a praying 
attitude in front of the tomb, thereby indicating that she 
was the sorrowful survivor ; while, on the plinth, is a whole 
procession of little images of sons and daughters, two by 
two. Six sons on the panel before the mother, and eight 
daughters on that behind her. The tomb of the third Sir 
Thomas, the grandson of the Sir Thomas, and his lady, is a 
very splendid one by Bernini, executed in Italy. It is a 
pediment of white marble, bearing the family escutcheon, 
the panels and shafts of the columns black. It is indeed of 
beautiful workmanship. Sir Thomas is in a recumbent 
position, leaning on his elbow, as if contemplating the effigy 
of his wife, whose figure and drapery are finely wrought.. 
Behind him, on the one hand, are seen books as in a library, 
with various classical titles on the back; and on the other 
hand, himself, mounted on his favourite horse — probably 
intended to intimate his prevailing tastes, as well as an ac- 
cident in hunting which hastened his death. The bust of 

10* 



114 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

the lady is particularly soft and rich, the arms and hands 
are beautiful. 



CLOPTON HALL. 



There is one more place, the history of whose proprietors 
is, in a slight degree, connected with that of Shakspeare in 
this neighbourhood, which we will take some notice of be- 
fore we quit his Stratford haunts altogether ; and the more 
because it is a specimen of a large class of old mansions 
which once held families of great note, but are now passed 
into other hands, leaving no trace of their once important 
inhabitants, beyond the monuments in the parish church ; 
the brief record of their genealogy in the history of the 
county ; and some fragments of mysterious traditions that 
float about amongst the common people, but which are fast 
fading away too. 

The ground on which Shakspeare's own house in Strat- 
ford stood, had been the property of the Cloptons of Clop- 
ton. In course of time it was again purchased by a 
member of the Clopton family; and in 1742, Sir Hugh 
Clopton entertained Garrick, Macklin, and Dr. Delany 
there, under the poet's mulberry-tree. Shakspeare also 
mentions in his will, lands belonging to him in Welcome ; 
which probably also had been the property of the Cloptons, 
as Welcome adjoins the present estate of Clopton, both of 
which are, in fact, now in the hands of one proprietor. At 
Welcome too, Shakspeare used to visit and make merry 
with his friends, John and William Combe. 

But we have only to enter Stratford church to see that 
the Cloptons were the great family of that neighbourhood. 
At the east end of the north aisle, the chapel formerly dedi- 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 115 

cated to the blessed Virgin is occupied with their stately- 
tombs. Above hang numerous hatchments, recording so 
many deaths, and family banners, dusty and worn with 
age, waved there too. These are now gone ; but the monu- 
ments remain, with a massy and time-worn splendour 
which dwarfs all others around, and marks the once high 
estate of the race. Under a Gothic arch is raised an altar- 
tomb, about four feet and a half from the pavement, with 
numerous panels, originally filled with brazen shields of 
arms, but which have been long since torn away. A 
marble slab, without effigy or inscription, covers the tomb ; 
but the arms of Clopton, with those of the city of London, 
and those of the company of woolstaplers, of which he was 
a member, carved and yet remaining on the arch above, 
mark it as the tomb of Sir Hugh Clopton, who in 1492 was 
Lord Mayor of London, and by his will directed that his 
remains should repose exactly on this spot. Sir Hugh, a 
younger branch of the ancient family of the Cloptons, had 
not disdained to enter into trade, and becoming not only 
very wealthy but Lord Mayor of London, was a man of a 
princely liberality. Besides numerous benefactions to the 
city of London, to Aylesbury, and other places, in building 
bridges and making causeways, leaving perpetual charity 
to the poor, etc. — -he, at his own charge, built the Chapel 
of the Holy Trinity in Stratford, the transept of the church, 
and the bridge over the Avon ; as is still recorded on a 
tablet on the bridge itself. Sir Hugh also left an exhibition 
to three poor scholars in Oxford, and three in Cambridge. 

Besides the monument of this magnificent old Sir Hugh, 
the most conspicuous is that of George Carew, Earl of 
Totnes and Baron of Clopton. This is the Lord Carew, 
who, when President of Minister under Queen Elizabeth, 
wrote the chronicle of the events in Ireland during the three 
years of his government, called by him Hibernia Pacata, 
and published by his secretary and natural son, Sir Thomas 



116 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

Stafford. He was the friend of Camden the antiquary. 
He and his brother Richard Carew, were his fellow colle- 
gians at Christ Church, Oxford, and Camden styles him " a 
most affectionate lover of venerable antiquity." Lord 
Carew became Baron of Clopton by marrying Joyce the 
sole heiress of the family. The effigies of himself and 
countess in alabaster, coloured to the life, lie under a large 
ornamented arch, supported by Corinthian columns, and 
adorned as well with numerous figures of angels and 
cherubims, as with the various arms, warlike accoutrements 
and insignia of his office of master of the ordinance, carved 
in bas-relief. The hearty old Earl, who has a most frank 
and goodly aspect and bearing, is represented in armour; 
over which is his mantle of estate, a coronet on his head, 
and a lion couchant at his feet. If ever the outward form 
and visage bespoke the inner man, we should say they did 
in this worthy nobleman. That the effigy is a strong like- 
ness of the living man is testified by his existing portraits — 
and the likeness is that of a right worthy nobleman ; and 
Joyce Clopton his countess must have been a fitting match 
in generous and good disposition. Sir Thomas Stafford, the 
natural son of the Earl, so far from being a cause of un- 
happiness between this amiable pair, was the attached friend 
of both ; and as is recorded on a panel of this monument, 
not only lived long with them in affection, but desired to be 
buried near them, and is accordingly buried here with them. 
This is a pleasant record to be found on a tomb ; but it is 
not the only one which shows the amiable heart of the 
countess. Another inscription tells, that here too lies buried 
" Mistres Amy Smith, sixty years of age and a maid, who 
for forty years had been the waiting gentlewoman of the 
Right Honorable Joyce, Ladie Carew, Countess of Totnes, 
and desired to be buried in the same church where her ladie 
intended to be buried." And accordingly on her death, at 
Nonsuch in Surrey, Lady Carew had her remains deposited 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 117 

here, " in gratefull memorie of her whom she had foun so 
good a servant." Far and wide might we look for- another 
tomb bearing such beautiful records of the faith and affec- 
tions of the good old times. The worthy Earl not only 
continued in high esteem with Elizabeth, but under James 
and Charles, by the latter of whom he was created Earl of 
Totnes : and, as if the calm sunshine of virtue and friend- 
ship had shed a sanative power upon their lives, all of these 
parties lived to an old age, the Earl himself being seventy- 
three and the Countess seventy-eight. 

The stately old mansion where this family resided for 
more than five hundred years, stands advantageously on a 
fine upland about a mile above the town of Stratford, and 
commands all the fair vale in which Stratford stands. It 
looks full upon the woody spot to the right of the town in 
which Shottry lies nestled, and has for the boundary of its 
view, at the distance of some eight or ten miles, the long 
line of the Ilmington and Meon hills. Though thus ele- 
vated, it stands in a little hollow, as it were, in the upland 
slope, as if to give it that snug and protected air of which 
our ancestors were so fond, while behind it still ascend up- 
land pastures, their hedgerows finely scattered with noble 
elms. 

It was of this goodly old abode that a fair lady thus wrote 
to me on seeing the announcement of this volume. " I 
wonder if you know Clopton Hall, about a mile from Strat- 
ford-on-Avon. Will you allow me to tell you of a very 
happy day I once spent there. I was at school in the neigh- 
bourhood, and one of my schoolfellows was the daughter 

of a Mr. W , who then lived at Clopton. Mrs. W 

asked a party of the girls to go and spend a long afiernoon, 
and we set off one beautiful autumn day, full of delight and 
wonder respecting the place we were going to see. We 
passed through desolate, half-cultivated fields, till we came 
within sight of the house — a large, heavy, compact, square 



H8 ^ SIT T0 STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

brick building, of that deep, dead red almost approaching 
to purple. In front was a large formal court, with the massy 
pillars surmounted with two grim monsters ; but the walls 
of the court were broken down, and the grass grew as rank 
and wild within the enclosure as in the raised avenue walk 
down which we had come. The flowers were tangled with 
nettles, and it was only as we approached the house that 
we saw the single yellow rose and the Austrian brier trained 
into something like order round the deep-set diamond-paned 
windows. We trooped into the hall, with its tessellated 
marble floor, hung round with strange portraits of people 
who had been in their graves two hundred years at least ; 
yet the colours were so fresh, and in some instances they 
were so life-like, that looking merely at the faces, I almost 
fancied the originals might be sitting in the parlour beyond. 
More completely to carry us back, as it were, to the days 
of the civil wars, there was a sort of military map hung up, 
well finished with pen and ink, showing the stations of the 
respective armies, and with old-fashioned writing beneath, 
the names of the principal towns, setting forth the strength 
of the garrison, etc. In this hall we were met by our kind 
hostess, and told we might ramble where we liked, in the 
house or out of the house, taking care to be in the " recessed 
parlour" by tea-time. I preferred to wander up the wide 
shelving oak staircase, with its massy balustrade all crum- 
bling and worm-eaten. The family then residing at the 
hall did not occupy one-half, — no, not one-third of the 
rooms ; and the old-fashioned furniture was undisturbed 
in the greater part of them. In one of the bed-rooms (said 
to be haunted), and which, with its close pent-up atmosphere 
and the long shadows of evening creeping on, gave me an 
1 eirie' feeling, hung a portrait so singularly beautiful ! a 
sweet-looking girl with paly gold hair combed back from 
her forehead, and falling in wavy ringlets on her neck, and 
with eyes that 'looked like violets filled with dew/ for there 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 119 

was the glittering of unshed tears before their dark blue — 
and that was the likeness of Charlotte Clopton, about whom 
there was so fearful a legend told at Stratford church. In 
the time of some epidemic, the sweating-sickness, or the 
plague, this young girl had sickened, and to all appearance 
died. She was buried with fearful haste in the vaults of 
Clopton chapel, attached to Stratford church, but the sick- 
ness was not stayed. In a few days another of the Cloptons 
died, and him they bore to the ancestral vault ; but as they 
descended the gloomy stairs, they saw by the torch-light, 
Charlotte Clopton in her grave-clothes leaning against the 
wall ; and when they looked nearer, she was indeed dead, 
but not before, in the agonies of despair and hunger, she 
had bitten a piece from her white round shoulder ! Of 
course, she had walked ever since. This was " Charlotte's 
chamber," and beyond Charlotte's chamber was a state- 
chamber carpeted with the dust of many years, and dark- 
ened by the creepers which had covered up the windows, 
and even forced themselves in luxuriant daring through the 
broken panes. Beyond, again, there was an old Catholic 
chapel, with a chaplain's room, which had been walled up 
and forgotten till within the last few years. I went in on 
my hands and knees, for the entrance was very low. I 
recollect little in the chapel ; but in the chaplain's room 
were old, and I should think rare editions of many books, 
mostly folios. A large yellow-paper copy of Dryden's " All 
for Love, or the World Well Lost," date 1686, caught my 
eye, and is the only one I particularly remember. Every 
here and there, as I wandered, I came upon a fresh branch 
of a staircase, and so numerous were the crooked, half- 
lighted passages, that I wondered if I could find my way 
back again. There was a curious carved old chest in one 
of these passages, and with girlish curiosity I tried to open 
it ; but the lid was too heavy till I persuaded one of my 
companions to help me, and when it was opened, what do 



120 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

you think we saw — bones ! — but whether human, whether 
the remains of the lost bride, we did not stay to see, but ran 
off in partly feigned, and partly real terror. 

" The last of these deserted rooms that I remember, the 
last, the most deserted, and the saddest, was the Nursery, — a 
nursery without children, without, singing voices, without 
merry chiming footsteps ! A nursery hung round with its 
once inhabitants, bold, gallant boys, and fair, arch-looking 
girls, and one or two nurses, with round, fat babies in their 
arms. Who were they all? What was their lot in life? 
Sunshine, or storm ? or had they been ' loved by the gods, 
and died young ?' The very echoes knew not. Behind the 
house, in a hollow now wild, damp, and overgrown with 
elder-bushes, was a well called ! Margaret's Well, for there had 
a maiden of the house of that name drowned herself. 

" I tried to obtain any information I could as to the family 
of Clopton of Clopton. They had been decaying ever since 
the civil wars; had for a generation or two been unable 
to live in the old house of their fathers, but had toiled in 
London, or abroad, for a livelihood ; and the last of the old 
family, a bachelor, eccentric, miserly, old, and of most filthy 
habits, if report said true, had died at Clopton Hall but a few 

months before, a sort of boarder in Mr. W 's family. 

He was buried in the gorgeous chapel of the Cloptons in 
Stratford church, where you see the banners waving, and 
the armour hung over one or two splendid monuments. 

Mr.W had been the old man's solicitor, and completely 

in his confidence, and to him he left the estate, encumbered 
and in bad condition. A year or two afterwards, the heir- 
at-law, a very distant relation living in Ireland, claimed and 
obtained the estate, on the plea of undue influence, if not 

forgery, on Mr. W 's part ; and the last I heard of our 

kind entertainers on that day, was that they were outlawed, 
and living at Brussels." 

After reading this account, I was strongly drawn towards 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVOX. 12 1 

Clopton, and on my visit to Stratford, I hastened eagerly to 
see a spot so attractive by its history, and so graphically de- 
scribed. It was too late. A new lord was in possession. 
After passing through several hands from the period alluded 
to by my fair correspondent, and through many dismal stages 
of neglect and decay, Mr. Ward, the proprietor of Welcome, 
had purchased, and had had sixty workmen for" at least six 
months employed upon it. Those old staircases Were now 
painted and polished into new ones. Those old oak floors 
had given way to new deal ones. Wagon-loads of lumber, 
as the new proprietor called it, Wainscot, old chests and 
benches, and things of the past were carried away, and 
splendid stoves, and massy mantel-pieces of Italian marble, 
had succeeded the stern wide old-English fire-places. Mo- 
dern furniture was standing about in confused heaps in the 
rooms ; and fresh paintings of a higher character than the 
Cloptons ever knew, were in the act of ascending those 
walls where the grim Clopton portraits had hung so long; but 
which, such as still remained, were now consigned to a back 
gallery. " They are wretched affairs," said the young and 
gay lord of the house. " I am not at all related to the family ; 
and I do not know what I could better do with them." 

Perhaps nothing more could be expected. They clearly 
belonged to an era and a race that were gone by. They 
were things which had outlasted their legitimate masters :— 

Another race had been, and other palms were won. 

But I looked them over. They did not exceed two dozen 
in number, and amongst them 1 looked in vain for Charlotte 
Clopton, with " her locks of paly gold," or for Margaret, 
with " her beautiful face, and dark, brown ringlets flowing 
on her shoulders." " Was there not such and such a tradi- 
tion ?" I asked. " And such and such a picture ? Mar- 

II 



122 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

garet as a child with her little dog in her arms, and again 
in the bloom of maiden beauty ?" " There were such tra- 
ditions," it was carelessly replied, and in a tone which 
showed that there was no strong interest felt in such tradi- 
tions. Youth, wealth, and fresh possession, and the eager 
novelty of fitting up a new abode were not calculated to 
generate a sentimental mood ; and yet methinks the fate and 
the pictures of the past race of such an abode would have 
excited in my mind an interest, not the most trivial, amongst 
those feelings which give value to the possession. 

Well, but where were the pictures of Charlotte and Mar- 
garet Clopton ? They were not there ! In some of the 
many changes which had occurred, somebody had taken 
them away — somebody, it is to be hoped, who valued 
them. 

It was useless pressing further inquiries upon the new 
proprietor — but I saw some women collecting apples in 
the orchard, who were old enough to have known the 
house well in its former state. I asked them, and they 
knew the portraits familiarly, just as described by my fair 
correspondent, and they knew that they were there not very 
long ago. One of them also went and showed me the spring 
in which Margaret was drowned. In a woody glade which 
runs up behind the house is a succession of fish-ponds, now 
half empty of water, and neglected ; and beyond these, 
under the shade of large elms, is the spring in which Mar- 
garet drowned herself. It is a tank of perhaps three yards 
long, and two wide, and of a considerable depth, now 
arched over nearly level with the ground, and only open at 
one end. The water was so transparent that every part of 
the tank is seen to the bottom, and a fearful and gloomy 
place it is for any human creature to plunge into. What 
must have been the misery and despair which must have 
goaded Margaret's spirit in this old and solitary place, be- 
fore she could venture to plunge in there ! 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON AVON. 123 

On a stone laid behind the spring, but which is said to 
have been laid at its mouth, are inscribed the initials S. I. C. 
1686. No doubt those of Sir John Clopton, who died in 
1692, and who most probably first enclosed this well. But 
who were Charlotte and Margaret Clopton ? Whose daugh- 
ters were they ? At what period did they live ? What 
more is known of the tragic death of Charlotte ? What is 
known of the history, or the cause of the suicide of Mar- 
garet ? These are questions that we ask of the local histo- 
rian : but we ask in vain. The facts to which they relate 
are such as antiquaries, while hunting after genealogies, 
knights and warriors, and heads of families, have too much 
passed over, to the great loss of our domestic history. The 
dry outlines of family descent have been scrupulously pre- 
served, but the most touching and characteristic passages in 
the home events of those families themselves have been pass- 
ed over as not belonging to the province of the topographer. 
What would we not now give to recall them ? What would 
we not give, as we pass through the galleries of our ancient 
houses, or stand by family tombs, and see the portraits or 
read the names of numbers of whom no special record is 
left, to be able to summon them before us, and hear what 
befel them in their day ? Even Dugdale, who, unlike the 
general race of topographers, has rescued so many of these 
fleeting traditions in his beloved county of Warwick, has 
left no glimpse of the history of Charlotte or Margaret Clop- 
ton. Yet there is no doubt but that the popular traditions 
respecting them are founded in fact. To the portraits of 
these ladies, which were in the hall at the time of the visit 
of my fair correspondent, and were well known to the 
women with whom I conversed in Clopton orchard, these 
stories were always attached. In Mr. Reason's collection 
of Shakspeare relics, already mentioned, there is a painting 
of Charlotte in her Trance ; a lovely young woman leaning 



124 VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

back in a cushioned chair as in a profound sleep, which, no 
doubt, was one of the family-pieces of the hall. Everybody 
thereabout was familiar with just as much of Charlotte's 
history as is given above by my fair friend ; and the women 
in the orchard said that Margaret had drowned herself in 
the well called after her, on account of the death of her 
lover in the civil wars. Who would not give up the cata- 
logue of a score of bearded knights, grim Sir Johns and Sir 
Thomases, with all their dates of birth and death, for the 
simple history of these unfortunate damsels, which the his- 
torians of the time did not deem worthy of their notice ! 
We may now inquire for them in vain. 

Clopton, independent of its family interest, has, in fact, 
little interest. It has no claims to fine architecture or to 
value from works of art ; but it attracts our imagination as 
a specimen of those mansions of old families which once 
were of importance, but are now, like their ancient proprie- 
tors, gone to decay, or are, as it were, resuscitated by the 
wealth of a modern purchaser. The north and west sides 
of the house are said to have been built in Henry VII.'s 
time ; the south and east part in that of Charles II. When 
Ireland visited it in 1792 or 1793, he found in it a bed given 
to Sir Hugh Clopton by Henry VIL, and in which he is 
said to have frequently slept ; the furniture being of fine 
cloth of a darkish brown, with a rich fringe of silk about 
six inches deep. In the attic story also was a chapel, with 
scriptural inscriptions in black letter, and religious paintings 
on the walls, as ancient as the house. In one place was a 
large fish, with a hand at a distance dragging it forward 
with a string ; in others, scraps of poetry, such as these 
lines : 

W&\)tt]jtx »ou vise nearlne, 

©i- fioe to bctJ late, 

aHememibcr (£i)vfst JJesus 

STtmt tifeTr flcr »oitr saftc. 



VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 125 

This chapel, which one of the Cloptons, a stanch Catholic, 
is said to have used after the Reformation, is exactly such 
a chapel as is still found in the roof of Compton-Winyates.* 
Mr. Ireland's son, the fabricator of the Shakspeare MSS., 
in his " Confessions" of that curious transaction, also states 
that he was with his father on this visit, and saw " numbers 
of chambers in this antique mansion darkened to obviate 
the expense of the tax on window-lights ; and in the cock- 
loft were piles of mouldering furniture of the age of Henry 
VII. ; amongst the rest an emblazoned representation of 
Elizabeth the Queen of Henry VII., as she lay in state in 
the chapel of the Tower of London, after having died in 
childbed ; which curious relic the then owner of Clopton 
gave to Mr. S. Ireland, as a ]ricture which was in his opi- 
nion of no service, because, being on vellum, it would not do 
to light the. fire." 

Mr. Ireland had been informed that many papers had 
been removed from Shakspeare's house in Stratford at the 
time of the fire, to this house ; and on inquiring if any such 
had ever been seen, the proprietor made this answer, " By 
G — d, I wish you had arrived a little sooner! Why, it 
isn't a fortnight since I destroyed several basketfuls of let- 
ters and papers, in order to clear a chamber for some young 
partridges which I wish to bring up alive ; and as to Shak- 
speare, why there were many bundles with his name wrote 
upon them. Why, it was in this very fire-place I made a 
roaring bonfire of them." 

Mr. Ireland listened to this relation with feelings not to 
be described, and starting from his chair, exclaimed, " My 
God ! sir, you are not aware of the loss which the world 
has sustained. Would to heaven I had arrived sooner !" 
Williams, the then proprietor, called his wife, who made 

* See Visit to Compton-Winyates. 
11* 



126 VISIT TO STRATFORD-OX-AVON. 

the same statement, and lanterns were lighted, and the dark 
rooms of the house examined, but nothing further of the 
kind found. How far this story is true, considering the 
fabulating character of the younger Ireland, may be left to 
the faith of the reader, especially as the father, in his 
account of his visit, is silent on so remarkable a circum- 
stance. 

In its later years Clopton must have been, in its desola- 
tion, just the place for generating tales of superstition. Its 
old carving and decayed paintings, its ruinous windows and 
rotting floors, — all around its fences and gates going to 
decay, and its mighty trees spreading higher and wider, 
and casting over it a brooding gloom. It will now, no 
doubt, soon become a goodly and splendidly-furnished 
mansion ; but the visible traces of the ill-fated Cloptons are 
nearly erased, and it can only in future be said, such a 
family once lived there, and such were the traditions of 
their fate. Amongst the portraits, that of Lord Carew, al- 
ready mentioned, who married Joyce, the heiress of this 
house, was still to be seen, bearing a striking resemblance, 
both in form and feature, to the effigy in the church. There 
were also one or two besides who exhibited lively and at- 
tractive features, but they are not by eminent masters, and 
therefore cannot claim a merit apart from their own iden- 
tical importance, which has expired. The Cloptons have 
evidently been not only a powerful but a well-featured 
race ; but they had not their poet, they had not even their 
painter, who could invest them with immortality. They, 
therefore, now hang in the back passage of a house no 
longer theirs. Its master does not share their blood ; he 
has no interest in them, and how long they will be tolerated, 
even there, is a dubious problem, 

Can any termination of the career of a once honoured and 
fortunate race, be imagined more melancholy ? Yet, of how 
many a proud line is this the end ! 



VISIT TO STRATFOliD-ON-AVON. 127 

As I returned towards Stratford, I met the new lady of 
the mansion driving up in her gay equipage, and I could 
not help wondering at what period the portraits of herself 
and her descendants would be displaced by some other 
family, and the Cloptons be exiled, even from the back 
passage, to make room for the Wards ! 

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI. 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY, WARWICKSHIRE. 

This pleasant old mansion, the seat of the Earl of Craven, 
which lies about four miles from Coventry, besides its own 
particular attractions as a good specimen of an old monastic 
building, and containing a considerable number of valuable 
paintings, lying also in a pleasant park, and retaining its 
gardens in their primitive state — making it altogether a 
very agreeable spot to visit on a summer's day, with cheer- 
ful hearts and cheerful friends — has a great deal of interest 
attached to it, through its having been the scene of some of 
the earliest and latest fortunes of the Princess Elizabeth, 
the daughter of James I. and Queen of Bohemia. It was 
hence that the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot endea- 
voured to seize and carry her off when a mere girl, and it 
was hither she returned after all the troubles of her most 
troublesome and disastrous reign, and enjoyed the only 
peaceful days of her existence. Elizabeth was a Stuart, 
and, like the rest of her family, was doomed to drink deep 
of misfortunes ; but, strictly virtuous and highly amiable, 
Providence seemed to concede to her what so few of her 
family were permitted, or indeed deserved, a quiet termina- 
tion of a stormy life. If ever the finger of an ill-fate, laid 
on evil deeds, was, however, manifest, it was not merely 
in her family, but in the families of those who were con- 
cerned in the attempt to carry her off from this place. Such 
were the singular fortunes connected with that circum- 
stance and its great cause, the Gunpowder Plot, that, per- 
haps, no other spot of the strangely eventful soil of Eng- 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 129 

land can show more remarkable ones. It will be curious 
to trace these most uncommon and melancholy facts before 
we make our visit to the house. 

The Princess Elizabeth was, at the time of the plot, 
living here under the care of the Earl of Harrington, the 
then proprietor of the abbey. This circumstance, and the 
fact also that several of the conspirators were closely con^ 
nected with that part of the country, drew them in their 
defeat in that direction, and made Warwickshire, with its 
neighbouring counties of Worcester and Stafford, the grand 
scene of the catastrophe. 

It appears singular, at first view, that so many of the 
principal conspirators were from the midland counties ; but 
Worcestershire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire, were in- 
habited by more stanch Catholic families than perhaps any 
other part of England. Warwickshire, moreover, never 
was conspicuous for its attachment to the Stuarts, as was 
eminently shown when the Parliament and Charles I. came 
to open rupture. Catesby, the originator of the plot, was 
indeed, of Ashby St. Legers in Northamptonshire, — itself, 
however, not far distant from the scene of action, and he 
was intimately connected with the Catholics in these counties. 
In his case, as very remarkably in that of several others of 
the conspirators, and as is more often the fact in life than 
we are aware of till we begin to trace back effects to their 
causes, he was in a great degree the victim of his father's 
crimes and a pernicious education. He was lineally de- 
scended from that Catesby, who was the favourite and one 
of the base ministers of Richard III., whose fame is still 
preserved in the old popular rhyme : 

The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel the dog, 
Rule all England under the Hog. 

He appears to have been one of the most zealous and de- 



130 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

voted bigots that this country every produced. He was for 
many years the sworn friend of Garnet, the principal of 
the Jesuits in England, and was supposed to be concerned, 
more or less, in all the plots and schemes of treason which 
fermented and occasionally came to the light during the 
reign of Elizabeth. On her death, the hopes of the Catholics 
rose high. James, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, a queen 
who had suffered so much from the heretic Elizabeth, and 
a queen, too, so fervently attached to the Catholic religion, 
was fondly expected by the Papists, when seated on the 
throne of Great Britain, and free to avow his own predi- 
lections, to show that the influence of blood and of filial re- 
sentment were not unfelt. They hoped from him, if not 
the restoration of the ancient worship, at least a most in- 
dulgent toleration of it. James disappointed them. He 
showed every disposition to put into rigorous force the laws 
against popish recusants ; and when, on the conclusion of a 
peace with the king of Spain, even that monarch was found 
to have secured no stipulation in favour of the English 
Catholics, their rage and disappointment grew desperate. 
Catesby hit upon the grand idea of blowing the whole Pro- 
testant government of England into the air. He soon found 
in Thomas Percy, a branch of the illustrious house of Nor- 
thumberland, a ready coadjutor, for Percy was smarting 
under personal resentment towards the king, and already 
brooding on a plan of assassination. 

One of the earliest to join these desperate men in so des- 
perate an enterprise, was a gentleman who, at first sight, 
would have seemed the most unlikely of all persons, and 
that was the handsome, the accomplished, the fortunate -- 
and, as far as personal disposition, the resources of mind and 
of fortune, elegant pursuits, and the dearest domestic ties, 
could make any man so — the singularly happy Sir Everard 
Digby. 

Sir Everard was descended of a highly distinguished line. 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 131 

He was distinguished at the court of Elizabeth, by the 
graces of his person, and his accomplishments ; from James 
himself he had received the honour of knighthood. His 
father had made himself known by his philosophical writ- 
ings, and he himself had received such an education, and 
possessed such abilities as made the pa^h of fresh honours 
easy and alluring. As if fortune had intended to mark him 
out as one of her especial favourites, he had succeeded in 
gaining the hand of a woman, at once of great endowments 
of person, mind, and estate, — the sole heiress of the Mulsho 
family, of Gothurst in Buckinghamshire. To crown this 
extraordinary tendency towards felicity, he had already 
two lovely children ; one of them afterwards destined to 
acquire great distinction for himself, as Sir Kenelm Digby. 
What then was the disastrous cause which was able to 
overpower all these concurrent auspices, and lead him into 
this bloody enterprise ? An unlucky education. His father 
died when he was but eleven years old, and the priests of the 
Catholic families with which he was most intimately con- 
nected, seized on the opportunity to mould his naturally 
fine and generous mind to the views of their party. They 
brought him up with the most devoted notions of the claims 
of the Catholic church, and the duties which every gentle- 
man in this country owed it ; and he eventually became 
the victim of these their inculcations. 

But there was another circumstance, and one which I 
have here more particularly in view, which, to a mind ac- 
customed to mark such things in the current of human 
affairs, might seem to have a mysterious influence. • 

In the old park of Coleshill, in Warwickshire, formerly 
stood the ancient hall of the De Montfords. In the reign 
of Henry VII., Sir Simon de Montford was accused of 
sending 30/. to Perkin Warbeck, whom he firmly believad 
to be the son of Edward IV. He was tried at Guildhall in 
1494, for high treason, condemned, hanged, and quartered 



132 ^IBTT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

at Tyburn, and all his vast estates confiscated. The people 
beheld with surprise that he who had been the accuser of 
De Montford at the bar — Simon Digby, keeper of the 
Tower, speedily become the possessor of his estate at Coles- 
hill, and established himself as master in his ancient house 
there. In this very house, according to tradition, a de- 
scendant of this Simon Digby, who attained it by the de- 
struction of its lawful lord, on a plea of high treason, was 
wont to hold secret councils with Catesby and his fellows, 
concocting a scheme of treason of the most terrible descrip- 
tion, and which brought him to the block when all other 
circumstances tended to his felicity and advancing fortune. 

But the most striking instance of that fatality which seems 
to linger in criminal families for some generations, yet at 
length breaks out, and " visits the sins of the father on the 
children even unto the third and fourth generation," was 
shown in yet another family — that of Lyttleton — which 
furnished two traitor-victims to this popish plot. 

At Shirford, near Nuneaton, in Warwickshire, there 
formerly stood an old hall, now long since fallen to decay 
and pulled down, which, with a fair estate there, belonged 
to a most unfortunate family of the Smiths. 

About the middle of the sixteenth century, Sir Walter 
Smith was the possessor of Shirford Manor, and his singular 
story is thus related by Sir William Dugdale : " Sir Walter, 
being grown an aged man at the death of his first wife, and 
considering of a marriage for Richard, his son and heir, then 
grown up to man's estate, made his mind known to Mr. 
Thomas Chetwyn, of Ingestrie in Staffordshire, a gentleman 
of ancient family and fair estate, who, encouraging the 
proposal in behalf of one of his daughters, Dorothy, was 
willing to give five hundred pounds, as a portion with her. 
But, no sooner had the old knight seen the young lady, than 
he became a suitor for himself; being so captivated with 
her beauty, that he tendered as much for her, besides a good 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 133 

jointure, as he should have received in case the match had 
gone for his son ; which liberal offer so wrought upon Mr. 
Chetwyn as that he spared not for arguments to persuade 
his daughter to accept of Sir Walter for her husband ; — 
whereupon the marriage ensued accordingly ; but with what 
a tragic issue will quickly be seen : for it was not long ere 
that, her affections wandering after younger men, she gave 
entertainment to one Mr. William Robinson, then of Dray- 
ton Basset, a young gentleman of about twenty-two years 
of age, son of Sir George Robinson, a rich mercer of 
London ; and grew so impatient of all impediments which 
might hinder her full enjoyment of him, that she rested not 
til she had contrived a way to be rid of her husband. For 
which purpose, corrupting her waiting-gentlewoman and a 
groom of the stable, she resolved by their help and as- 
sistance of Robinson, to strangle him in bed, appointing a 
time and manner how it should be effected. And though 
Robinson failed in coming on the designed night, perhaps 
through a right apprehension of so direful a fact, she no 
whit staggered in her resolutions ; for, watching her hus- 
band till he had fallen asleep, she let in the assassins before 
specified ; and casting a long towel about his neck, caused 
the groom to lie upon him to keep him from struggling, 
whilst herself and her maid, straining the towel, stopped 
his breath. 

" It seems the good old man little thought that his lady 
had acted therein ; for when they first cast the towel about 
his neck, he cried out, ' Help, Doll, help !' After an hour, 
that the maid and groom were silently got away, to palliate 
the business, she made an outcry in the house, wringing her 
hands, pulling her hair, and weeping extremely, with pre- 
tence that she had found him in that condition. Which 
subtle and feigned show of sorrow prevented all suspicions 
of his violent death ; and, not long after she went to London, 
setting so high a value upon her beauty, that Robinson, her 

12 



134 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

former darling, perhaps for not keeping touch with her, as 
before hath been said, became neglected. But, within two 
years following, it so happened that this woful deed of 
darkness was brought to light by the groom before specified, 
who, being entertained with Mr. Richard Smith, son and 
heir to the murdered knight ; and, attending him to Coven- 
try with divers other servants, became so sensible of his 
villany when he was in his cups, that, out of good-nature, 
he took his master aside, and upon his knees, besought for- 
giveness from him for acting in the murder of his father, 
declaring all the circumstances thereof. Wherefore Mr. 
Smith discreetly gave him good words, but wished some 
others that he trusted to have an eye to him, that he might 
not escape when he had slept and better considered what 
might be the issue thereof. Notwithstanding which direc- 
tion, he fled away with his master's best horse, and hasting 
into Wales, attempted to go beyond sea ; but, being hindered 
by contrary winds, after three essays to launch out, was so 
happily pursued by Mr. Smith, who spared no cost in send- 
ing to several ports, that he was found out and brought 
prisoner to Warwick, as was also the lady and her gentle- 
woman, all of whom with great boldness denying the fact, 
and the groom most impudently charging Mr. Smith with 
endeavour of corrupting him to accuse the lady, his mother- 
in-law, falsely, to the end that he might get her jointure. 
But upon his arraignment, so smitten was he at the appre- 
hension of the guilt, that he publicly acknowledged it, and 
stoutly justified what he had so said to be true, to the face 
of the lady and her maid : who, at first, with much seeming 
confidence, pleaded their innocence, till, at length, seeing the 
particular circumstances thus discovered, they both confessed 
the fact. For which, having judgment to dye, the lady was 
burnt at a stake, near the Hermitage on Wolvey-heath, to- 
wards the side of Shirford lordship, where the country people 
to this day show the place ; and the groom, with the maid, 
suffered death at Warwick." 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 1 35 

But misfortune had not yet done with this family. This 
Richard Smith, having avenged the death of his father, it 
came to his turn, in the course of years, to become the prey 
of Sir John Lyttleton, who, to use the words of Sir William 
Dugdale, "juggled him out of a fair inheritance," of which 
this lordship of Shirford formed a part. We cannot do bet- 
ter than let Sir William tell this most singular story, as he 
has done the last. 

" Having but one daughter, called Margaret, by his first 
wife, and doubting of male issue, he treated with Sir John 
Lyttleton, of Frankley in Worcestershire, for a marriage be- 
twixt his said daughter and William Lyttleton, third son of 
the said Sir John ; in consideration of which he agreed to 
settle all his lands in remainder, after his own decease, with- 
out other issue, upon the said William and Margaret, and 
their heirs. And having writings drawn accordingly, trusted 
the said Sir John Lyttleton to get them engrossed. Which 
being effected, and a day appointed for sealing, Mr. Smith 
came to Frankley, where he found a very noble entertain- 
ment, and some of Sir John's friends to bear him company, 
in whose presence the writings were brought forth, and be- 
gun to be read : but before they came to the uses, stept in 
Sir John Lyttleton's keeper in a sweat, and told them that 
there were a brace of bucks at lair in the park, which car- 
ried a glass in their tails for Mr. Smith's dogs to look in — 
for he loved coursing well, and had his greyhounds there — 
but if they made not haste, those market-people which passed 
through the park would undoubtedly rouse them. Where- 
fore Sir John Lyttleton earnestly moved Mr. Smith to seal 
the writings without further reading, protesting that they 
were according to the draughts he had seen, and without 
any alteration. Which bold asseverations, putting him out 
of all suspicion of sinister dealing, caused him forthwith to 
seal them, and to go into the park. 

" Hereupon the two children, for they were each of them 



136 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

not above nine years old, were married together, and lived 
in the house with Sir John. But it so happened that, 
about six years after, the young man died by a fall from 
his horse, insomuch as Mr. Smith, considering that his 
daughter had no issue, resolved to take her away, and sig- 
nified as much to Sir John ; who, designing to marry her 
again to George, his second son, refused to deliver her ; till 
which time Mr. Smith never suspected anything in the deed, 
formerly so sealed, as hath been said. But then, upon dif- 
ference between him and Sir John, it appeared that for want 
of issue by the before specified William and Margaret, the 
lands were to devolve unto the right heirs of the said Wil- 
liam, which was Gilbert Lyttleton, the eldest brother, con- 
trary to the plain agreement at first made. To make short, 
therefore, William, the third son, married her — George, the 
second son, enjoyed her — and Gilbert, the eldest, had the 
estate, as heir to his brother." 

From Gilbert, the eldest son of this bold bad man, the 
estate descended to his son John, from whom Mr. Smith in 
vain endeavoured to recover it by several suits at law. 
Misfortune descended with it. John Lyttleton, the son of 
Gilbert, being attainted for high treason for uniting with 
the Earl of Essex in the 4 2d of Elizabeth, and this very 
estate was forfeited to the crown. It was afterwards 
granted by James I. to the widow of John Lyttleton, on 
her petition ; and she, being justly apprehensive of fresh 
law-suits from Smith, sold it to Serjeant Hale, a lawyer of 
great eminence. Hale disposed of it among his five sons, 
— but the curse of unjust possession seemed divided 
amongst them with it ; it became a source of most bitter 
and inextinguishable contentions amongst them. 

Nor did the ill luck confine itself to one line of the jug- 
gling Sir John Lyttleton's descendants ; another of his 
grandsons — Stephen, the son of his second son George and 
of this Margaret Smith, became one of the chief conspira- 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 137 

tors in the Gunpowder Plot, and lost his life and estates in 
consequence. His cousin Humphry, the younger brother 
of that John who had suffered attainder for his participa- 
tion in Essex's affair, a conspirator, too, narrowly escaping 
with his own life in endeavouring to save Stephen. 

If ever a fatality attended ill-gotten property, surely it 
did that of this daring Sir John Lyttleton. The very means 
which the Lyttletons used seemed to become the means for 
their destruction, and their dishonour was brought, as it 
were, by the design and agency of some supernatural power, 
to their own country, and exhibited before the eyes of their 
neighbours. Nay, as treason and gunpowder were em- 
ployed by them, treason and gunpowder brought them to 
their fate. 

The course of these strange circumstances now lead us to 
Combe Abbey. The plot being all ready, and the whole 
of the royal family being expected to be blown up — . except 
the Duke of York, whom Percy was to seize, and the 
Princess Elizabeth, who was here — Sir Everard Digby 
undertook to be at Dunchurch with a body of horse raised 
amongst his friends thereabout, and seize upon the princess. 
As she was a child, and therefore not too old to be edu- 
cated in the Catholic faith, her they proposed to proclaim 
queen. When the day came, and, instead of the blowing 
up of the Parliament, the discovery of the plot was made, 
and Guy Fawkes seized ; Catesby, Percy, the Lyttletons, 
and others of the conspirators, as if struck with infatuation, 
instead of making their escape abroad, all hastened down 
to Dunchurch to Sir Everard Digby, in the wild hope of 
seizing the princess, and raising a civil war in her name. 
The princess, by the activity of Lord Harrington, was con- 
veyed into Coventry. The celebrated Sir Fulke Greville, 
who was deputy-lieutenant of the county, appeared in 
force against them. He seized the horses, arms, and per- 
sons of the suspected \ the sheriff raised the country 5 and 

12.* 



138 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

the unhappy conspirators soon found the population from 
whom they had vainly hoped for support, up, and in full 
chase of them. The pursuit was hot ; gentle and simple, 
cavalry and peasantry, came fiercely upon them from all 
quarters, and they flew in wild confusion across the county 
into Worcestershire ; some taking shelter in Hendlip-hall, 
the seat of Thomas Habington, Esq., a zealous Catholic and 
a secret favourer of their views, but the greater number 
fleeing to Holbeach-house, the fortified mansion of Stephen 
Lyttleton. 

The account of the discovery of those who concealed 
themselves at Hendlip, as given in the " Beauties of Eng- 
land," vol. xv., is very curious. The Habingtons were a 
family of great distinction and talent. The then owner, 
Thomas, was a man of letters. He wrote a history of 
Edward VI., which was completed by his son William 
Habington, the author of Castara, in which he celebrated 
under that name, his wife Lucia, the daughter of William 
Lord Powis ; a poem which went through several editions 
at the time, and which has been reprinted in the present 
century by Mr. Elton. William was author also of " The 
Queen of Arragon," a play acted at court before Charles I., 
and again at the Restoration ; on this latter occasion with 
a prologue and epilogue, by the author of Hudibras. 

But the Habingtons were as zealously attached to the 
Catholic cause as to letters. Thomas, the father of the 
poet, and at this time possessor of Hendlip, had been deep 
in the Babington conspiracy for the release of the Queen of 
Scots, and had suffered six years imprisonment in the 
Tower. His brother Edward also engaged in the same 
conspiracy, and suffered death for it. Thomas was mar- 
ried to Mary, the sister of Lord Monteagle, and it is sup- 
posed to be this lady whose letter of warning to her brother 
led to the discovery of the plot. John Habington, the 
father of Thomas, and grandfather of the poet, had, even 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 139 

while cofferer to Queen Elizabeth, been also a secret par- 
tisan of the Queen of Scots, and supporter of the Catholic 
interest, and had built the hall at Hendlip in such a style as 
might render it, on occasion, a place of most subtle conceal- 
ment. " There is," says the Beauties of England, " scarcely 
an apartment that has not secret ways of going in or going 
out ; some have back stairs concealed in the walls ; others 
have places of concealment in the chimneys. Some have 
trap-doors ; and all present a picture of gloom, insecurity, 
and suspicion." Something of the same kind we shall ob- 
serve in the old house of Compton Winyates. 

When the sheriff came with a party to Hendlip to search 
for the fugitives, Habington stoutly denied that any of them 
were there ; but the sheriff was too certain to the contrary to 
be easily put off. A most minute and persevering search was 
made, when in the gallery over the gate there were found two 
cunning and artificial conveyances in the main brick wall, so 
ingeniously framed, and with such art, as cost much labour 
ere they could be found. Three other secret places, contrived 
with no less skill and industry, were found in and about 
the chimneys, in one whereof two of the traitors were close 
concealed. These chimney conveyances being so strangely 
formed, having the entrances into them so curiously covered 
with brick, mortared and made fast to planks of wood, and 
coloured black like the other part of the chimney, that very 
diligent inquisition might well have passed by without 
throwing the least suspicion on such unsuspicious places. 
And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys 
according as they are combined together, and serve for the 
necessary use in several rooms, where were some that ex- 
ceeded common expectation, seeming outwardly fit for car- 
rying forth smoke ; but being further examined and seen 
into, the service was to no such purpose, but only to lend 
light and air downwards into the concealment where such 
as should be enclosed in them any time should be hidden. 



140 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

Eleven such corners and conveyances were found in the 
said house, all of them having books, massing stuff, and 
trumpery in them, only two excepted, which appeared to 
have been found in some former search, and therefore had 
now the less credit given to them. 

" Three days had been fully spent, and no more found 
there all this while ; but upon the fourth day in the morn- 
ing, from behind the wainscot in the galleries came forth 
two men of their own voluntary accord, as being no longer 
able to conceal themselves ; for they confessed that they 
had but one apple between them, which was all the suste- 
nance they had received during the time they were there 
hidden. One of them was named Owen, who afterwards 
murdered himself in the Tower, and the other Chambers. 
On the eighth day, the before-mentioned place in the chim- 
ney was found. Forth of this secret and most cunning 
conveyance came Henry Garnet, the Jesuit sought for, and 
another with him named Hall;* marmalade and other 
sweetmeats were found there lying by them, but their 
better maintenance was by a quill or reed 7 through a little 
hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into a 
gentlewoman's chamber, and by that passage caudles, 
broths, and warm drinks had been conveyed to them." 

But the most singular fortune befel the Lyttletons. They, 
with Sir Everard Digby and a considerable number of the 
other conspirators, made good their flight to Holbeach House, 
the seat of Stephen Lyttleton, where they determined to 
make a desperate resistance ; but by a curious coincidence, 
the very death which they had intended for the king and 
parliament, had nearly been their own, — their gunpowder, 
by some accident, exploded, blew up the roof, wounded 
some of them, and rendered the house untenable. There 

* This Jesuit^ called also Alcuine, or Oldcorn, was domesticated in the 
family. 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 141 

was nothing left but to make a bold sally, in which Stephen 
Lyttleton and Winter made their escape, but Percy, Catesby, 
and some others were killed, and Sir Everard Digby and the 
rest made prisoners. 

Stephen Lyttleton and Winter, though they had escaped 
immediate death or captivity, were in a condition little better. 
They were in a country swarming with active enemies in 
quest of them, and were obliged to skulk in woods, and hide 
themselves from view in a miserable condition of hourly 
fear and starvation. At length Humphry, the cousin of 
Stephen Lyttleton, conducted them to Hagley, then the 
house of the widow of his late unfortunate brother John, 
by which he rashly endangered the very property which 
had been recently restored to her by the king. Luckily, 
however, she was absent, and could not be held accounta- 
ble for their entering there ; and there, moreover, they soon 
found that treason in a servant which they had entertained 
against the whole body of the government ; and were 
delivered up to their fate. 

So perished this singular body of conspirators, many of 
them closing with a fearful catastrophe, very remarkable 
histories, and what is not less remarkable, the lines of 
Digby and Lyttleton, as if sufficient expiation had now been 
made for their ancestral crimes, again extended in dignity 
and prosperous state. 

The Princess Elizabeth, thus rescued from the meditated 
grasp of the conspirators here in her youth, returned once 
more to Combe Abbey in her latter days. Like that of all 
the Stuarts, her fate had a melancholy hue. The story of 
her unfortunate husband, Frederick, the Elector Palatine, 
of his being raised to the crown of Bohemia ; of his strug- 
gles to maintain his elevation, in which he was left without 
the smallest aid by his cold-blooded and pedantic father-in- 
law, James I. ; of his dethronement and melancholy end, is 
well known to most readers. If Elizabeth knew any enjoy- 



142 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

ment of life, it must have been in those later days when 
she resided in England. Many English gentlemen had 
chivalrously fought to maintain the cause of her and her 
husband in this kingdom, and amongst them she found a 
most devoted friend in the then Lord Craven. She is sup- 
posed, during her residence in this country, to have been 
privately married to him, and she left him her collection of 
paintings, most of which are here. In the great gallery of 
the house, the portraits of her husband and herself are sur- 
rounded by those of almost every individual of her own 
family, the Stuarts, and of most of those gallant officers, 
English and German, who distinguished themselves in 
their endeavours to maintain the Elector on the throne of 
Bohemia. 

The great interest of this house consists, indeed, in its 
connexion with the history of this amiable but unfortunate 
princess. The beautiful but dissipated Margravine of 
Anspach, whose portrait will be found on the staircase, 
may excite a momentary attention, but the mind will here 
speedily revert to Elizabeth, and every room of the house 
will present you with the characters and memorials of her 
story. In the Breakfast Room are white marble busts of 
Elizabeth and her daughter the Princess Sophia. In the 
Great Gallery are portraits of a daughter of Charles I. ; 
Dukes of Richmond and Brunswick ; Charles I. ; Charles 
II. at fourteen ; Earl of Craven ; Prince Edward, Count 
Palatine ; the Queen of Bohemia herself, a half-length by 
Honthorst, a very different face to that of the full-length at 
Hampton Court attributed to the same artist. She has here 
all the Stuart countenance ; an amiable but melancholy 
look, her crown on her head, and is robed in ermine. 
There is also a head of the king ; of Gustavus Adolphus, 
the king's firm friend ; Honthorst, the painter to the court 
of Bohemia, by himself ; a great number of the officers who 
fought in the king's wars; the queen's daughter as an 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. I43 

abbess; Charles II. and James II., and their queens; 
Princes Rupert and Maurice, and Dukes of Richmond and 
Brunswick again ; Duke of Richmond again, full-length ; 
Prince Henry. In the Bohemia Room, you have the queen 
again, full-length, with six daughters and four sons. In 
the Vandyke Room, are the Countess of Bedford, the 
daughter of Lord Harrington, who was educated with the 
Princess Elizabeth ; two daughters of Elizabeth. On the 
Staircase are Rupert and Maurice again ; a fine portrait of 
Lord Craven, and another in armour ; Duchess of Orleans, 
daughter of Charles I., by Vandyke. In the Library 
Charles II. in buff and cuirass ; the Duchess of Cleveland, 
said to be by three masters, Lely, Dobson, and Kneller. In 
the Drawing Room, full-lengths of the King and Queen of 
Bohemia, by Honthorst. The king is represented in ar- 
mour, with a surcoat of velvet lined with ermine. The 
sceptre is in his hand, and the crown, which was a most 
uneasy one to him, on his head. It is a fine portrait, ex- 
pressing great mildness of character. Elizabeth is in black, 
richly adorned with pearls. We have here again Charles 
I., by Mytens ; and full-lengths of Maurice and Rupert, in 
their youth, in buff. In the Beauty Parlour, so called from 
the portraits of the beauties of Charles IL's court formerly 
hanging there, are now Charles I. and his queen, three- 
quarter-lengths, by Vandyke, painted at the request of Eli- 
zabeth. They are crowned, and Henrietta is presenting 
Charles with a laurel-wreath. The king was evidently 
drawn in an hour of domestic comfort; and his coun- 
tenance is more cheerful and happy than you see it any- 
where else. In the Hunting Parlour, are the beauties of 
Charles IL's court. They are said, many of them, to be by 
Lely, but they are merely small heads, and not very 
striking. 

Perhaps so many portraits of the Stuart family are not 
to be met with in any one place besides, as these which 
were chiefly collected by the affection of Elizabeth. There 



14 4 VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 

is none, indeed, like the grand equestrian Vandykes of 
Charles I. at Warwick Castle, Windsor, and Hampton 
Court ; but there are many of a high character, and some 
nowhere else to be found. These render a visit to Combe 
well worth making ; but besides these the Abbey contains 
many admirable subjects by first-rate masters. Vandyke, 
Reubens, Carravagio, Lely, Kneller, Brughel, Teniers, 
Mereveldt, Paul Veronese, Rembrandt, Holbein, and Albert 
Durer. Amongst them I may particularly mention fine and 
characteristic portraits of Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Thomas 
More, General Monk, Lord Strafford, Vandyke by himself, 
Honthorst by himself; heads of the Saxony Reformers, by 
a Saxon artist ; Lot and his daughter, by Michael Angelo. 
There is also a very curious old picture of a lady with a 
golden drinking horn in her hand, and a Latin legend of 
Count Otto, who hunting in the forest, and seeing this lady, 
asked to drink out of her horn, for he was dreadfully athirst ; 
but on looking into it, he was suspicious of the liquor, and 
pouring it behind him, part of it fell on his horse, and took 
off the hair like fire. 

The Gallery is a fine old wainscoted room ; the cloisters 
are now adorned with projecting antlers of stags, and black- 
jacks. There are old tapestry, old paintings, old cabinets, 
one made of ebony, tortoise-shell, and gold ; and the house 
altogether has that air, and those vestiges of old times which 
must, independent of the Queen of Bohemia, give it great 
interest in the eyes of the lovers of old English houses, and 
of the traces of past generations. 



Mrs. Jameson, in her interesting " Visits at Home and 
Abroad," thus speaks of Elizabeth and of the most striking 
event in her history, that of occasioning the celebrated 
" Thirty Years' War." 



VISIT TO COMBE ABBEY. 145 

" Medon. — Do you forget that the cause of the Thirty 
Years' War was a woman ? 

" Alda. — A woman and religion ; the two best or worst 
things in the world, according as they are understood and 
felt, used and abused. You allude to Elizabeth of Bohemia, 
who was to Heidelberg what Helen was to Troy. 

" One of the most interesting monuments of Heidelberg, 

at least to an English traveller, is the elegant triumphal 

arch raised by the Palatine Frederic V. in honour of his 

bride — this very Elizabeth Stuart. I well remember with 

what self-complacency and enthusiasm our Chief walked 

about in a heavy rain, examining, dwelling upon every 

trace of this celebrated and unhappy woman. She had 

been educated at his country seat, and one of the avenues 

of his magnificent park yet bears her name. On her, fell a 

double portion of the miseries of her fated family. She had 

the beauty and the wit, the gay spirits, the elegant tastes, 

the kindly disposition of her grandmother, Mary of Scotland. 

Her very virtues, as a wife and a woman, not less than her 

pride and feminine prejudices, ruined herself, her husband, 

and her people. When Frederic hesitated to accept the 

crown of Bohemia, his high-spirited wife exclaimed, 'Let 

me rather eat dry bread at a king's table than feast at the 

board of an elector ;' and it seemed as if some avenging 

demon hovered in the air, to take her literally at her word, 

for she and her family lived to eat dry bread ; ay, and to 

beg it before they ate it ; but she would be a queen. Blest 

as she was in love, in all good gifts of nature and fortune, 

in all means of happiness, a kingly crown was wanting to 

complete her felicity ; and it was cemented to her brow with 

the blood of two millions of men. And who was to blame ? 

Was not her mode of thinking the fashion of her time, the 

effect of her education ? Who had 

Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame 
Of golden sovereignty 1" 
13 



VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, FLODDEN FIELD, AND 
OTHER SCENERY OF MARMION. 

The poetry of Scott has been eclipsed by his prose. He 
had the singular fortune to see his poetic fame diminished 
by a cause which carried with it its own consolation, — the 
vast success of those prose romances which came after his 
metrical ones, — prose in outward form, but abounding in 
all the elements of poetry, in such force and extent as gave 
him no mean claim to the title of the second Shakspeare. 
'Twas a proud circumstance, and one which can happen 
rarely in the history of literature, that the gloom cast upon 
his poetry, after it had placed him by acclamation in the 
chair of cotemporary supremacy, was the mighty shadow 
of his own growing form, as he ascended higher and still 
higher up the mountain of Fame, and towards the sun of 
universal favour. There was indeed another cause which 
operated collaterally to put down his romantic lays below 
their just position, and that was the novelty, and consequent 
great popularity of Byron's Eastern Tales. This cause 
could, however, have produced merely a temporary effect; 
for the exaggerated and unhealthy spirit of the Giaour and 
Mazeppa school could not long maintain its hold upon the 
public mind. The very effect of Byron's other productions 
tended to destroy their influence ; for it was impossible for 
the same mind to feel the philosophic depth and spiritual 
beauty of Childe Harold, or of Cain, or to enjoy the wit, the 
humour, the sarcasm, the graphic painting of human life, 

the alternating mockery and poetic feeling which charac- 



VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 147 

terize the equally wonderful and reprehensible Don Juan, 
and still to admire the stilted and hectoring style of those 
Turkish tales. Byron was himself the first to laugh at the 
public which had swallowed his mock-heroic for the true 
sublime. Between the other poetry of Byron and that of 
Scott there could be no direct comparison, and therefore no 
unjust disparagement ; for, though no one would contest the 
question of Byron's superiority, as a poet, to Scott, no in- 
tellect which could feel the greatness of the one could be 
insensible to the real merit of the other in any of his pro- 
ductions. It could only be the fascination of the prose ro- 
mances of Scott which could draw away the public from his 
poetical ones, and make it for a time unjust in its estimate 
of them ; for, after all, in their particular class and depart- 
ment, they are amongst the most delightful poems in the 
language. They are not poetry of the grade of Shak- 
speare's Hamlet or Lear, of Milton's Paradise Lost, or some 
of the writings of Wordsworth or Coleridge ; they do not 
fix us in deep astonishment as does the stern majesty of 
some of these, nor lead us down into the deepest regions of 
the human heart as do the others 5 yet they are, in their 
way and of their kind, as real poetry. They are transcripts 
of nature in her most beautiful scenery, of human life in its 
most picturesque and romantic shape. Who would wish 
for ever to be borne along by the city crowd, to live amid 
the fiercest political agitations, within the sound of the most 
trenchant or patriotic eloquence, whether of senate or of 
bar, and would not delight to steal away to the domestic 
fireside — to home, peace and affection, to the voices of 
children, wives, sisters, and friends ? There are none but 
feel the delicious charm of such retreat from the excitement 
and exasperation of those public stimulants, and none 
therefore but who must love the poetry of Scott. The 
epistles prefatory to each canto of Marmion are some of the 
most interesting peeps into a heart, strong in its tastes and 



j 4 8 VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 

warm in its affections, with which the world was ever 
favoured. It is an old truth, that we may have too much 
of a good thing ; and to climb Alps, however magnificent, 
— to wander amid the stunning roar of an ocean, however 
sublime, — to run bareheaded through tempests and dark- 
ness, however exciting, can be only the wild delights of a 
moment, — acts of youth, of passion, or romance; but, to 
stroll out for a summer evening, amongst beautiful hills, by 
streams rapid and clear ; through forests hoary Avith years, 
yet green and musical with spring ; these are refreshments 
which every day and every stage of life have enough in 
them of weariness and annoyance to render most welcome, 
and all who love them must love the poetry of Scott. He 
himself knew, as well as any man, the genuine character 
and claims of his poetry. He took down from the 
crumbling wall of the feudal castle, the disused harp of the 
old metrical romancer, and strung it again to feudal strains 
in the improved harmony of modern language, and with the 
wider views of modern society. If the field was old, the 
mode of its occupation was new : he engrafted on the old 
Anglo-Norman stock, a germ of poetry novel and peculiar. 
Chivalrous life, as seen not from its own living centre, but 
from the modern distance, was beheld again with a quick 
delight which proved the original power and fresh feeling 
of its restorer. And had it no high and heroic excitement ? 
The life and character of the Gael and the Borderer, till 
then nearly overlooked ; the adventures of Bruce, Wallace, 
and the fourth and fifth James ; the contentions of England 
and Scotland ; the beauty of the highland hills and lochs, 
and the stern picturesqueness of many a mouldering castle, 
both in highland and lowland, — all had a newness, a 
piquancy, and a spirit in them, that was felt throughout the 
kingdom. It is true that, as to heroic story and human 
character in all its varieties, the abandonment of rhythmical 
restraint subsequently enabled him to sketch more broadly, 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 149 

and fill up more freely and fully ; but after all, when that 
reaction takes place, which assuredly will, it will be found 
that there is no poetry so thoroughly imbued with that 
species of beauty which every summer leads so many 
thousands to the Scottish highlands, as that of the man 
whose very name seems to designate him par excellence, 
The Scott. His poetry actually smells of the heather. I 
never read it, or think of it, but I hear the very rustle of the 
crimson heath-bells in the gale. I see the beautiful birches 
dipping their pensile boughs in summer waters as beautiful. 
Around me are moss and ferns, where the roebuck couches 
in secret ; before me, scattered over the brown waste, little 
brown huts, part and parcel of the scene, sending abroad the 
odour of their peat-fires ; and my imagination is haunted by 
shapes of highland warriors, watching to accomplish some 
stern design, or fairies that still take a peep at this steam- 
engine world from the hidden entrance to their pleasant 
subterrane. 

So much for a passing tribute to the poetry of Scott, 
which, like that of Southey, has for a time been underrated, 
because we had got the metaphysical fit upon us, and could 
not condescend to be pleased except with what required 
reading twice over. Happy is the man whose taste is not 
so exclusive, but who has eyes for beauty wherever it is to 
be found, in all fields and schools, whether pleasant or pro- 
found ! 

The poem of Marmion has always been reckoned the 
highest in merit amongst those of Scott, as more active, 
bustling and spirited than the rest. If it were only for those 
introductory epistles, it ought to be dear to every feeling 
heart. Where is the spirit of a genuine friendship so sensi- 
bly felt; where are those descriptions of country life so 
living, especially in those gloomy months which stir the 
imagination of the poetical ? 

13* 



!50 VISIT TO LESTDISFARNE, 

Heap on more wood, the wind is chill ; 

But let it whistle as it will, 

We'll keep our merry Christmas still. 

Christmas, indeed, never was so richly painted as in this 
letter to Richard Heber ; and what sportsman, or country 
gentleman, does not feel the truth of the following lines ? — 

When sylvan occupation's done, 

And on the chimney rests the gun ; 

And, hung in idle trophy near, 

The game-pouch, fishing-rod, and spear ; 

When wiry terrier, rough and grim, 

And greyhound with his length of limb, 

And pointer, now employed no more, 

Cumber our parlour's narrow floor; 

When in his stall the impatient steed, 

Is long condemned to rest and feed ; 

When from our snow-encircled home, 

Scarce cares the hardiest step to roam, 

Since path is none, save that to bring 

The needful water from the spring ; 

When wrinkled news-page, thrice conned o'er, 

Beguiles the dreary hour no more ; 

And darkling politician crossed, 

Inveighs against the lingering post, 

And answering housewife sore complains 

Qf carriers' snow-impeded wains. 

Introduction to Canto V. 

Hogg himself has not laid before us the wintry toils and 
perils of the mountain shepherd more vividly than does his 
letter preceding canto fourth. He induces us to ask with 
him, 

Who envies now the shepherd's lot, 
His healthy fare, his rural cot, 
His summer couch by greenwood tree, 
His rustic kirn's loud revelry, 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 151 

His native wood-notes tuned on high 
To Marion of the blithesome eye ; 
His crook, his scrip, his oaten reed, 
And all Arcadia's golden creed? 

The very foundation of the poet's own character and 
tastes are all sketched out in these letters with a most de- 
lightful feeling. In the poem itself, it is not to be denied 
that there are many passages of merely easy tinkling rhyme, 
but there are also many others of the richest harmony and 
of the true trumpet tone. But we must pass from the poem 
to the scenery of its action. Not, however, let us premise 
here, to go over all that ground, for it would lead us to 
Edinburgh, to Boroughmoor, to Tantallon, and a whole 
train of places where our excellent friend Robert Chambers 
can lead the reader a thousand times better ; being one of 
those rare persons whose love of antiquities has grown, like 
that of Scott himself, out of the poetical feeling, and who 
has, in indulgence of it, traced some thousands of miles of 
auld Scotland, and made many a nook of Edinburgh as fa- 
miliar to him as the face of his Journal is to his host of 
readers. We must confine ourselves to the two most im- 
portant points of interest, Holy Isle and Flodden Field. 



LINDISFARNE IN HOLY ISLAND. 

Next to the great natural interest which bears upon the 
Battle of Flodden, is that produced by the fate of Constance 
de Beverley in the dungeon of Lindisfarne Abbey. In this 
episode Scott has portrayed one of those horrid practices of 
the Catholic church in its days of unlimited power, which 
forcibly act upon the imagination, because they are sur- 
rounded with mystery and darkness, and involve their des- 



!52 VISIT TO LTNDISFARNE, 

tinies in a machinery so vast and overwhelming as to present 
no result to the sufferers but despair and death. This scene 
in the dungeon of Lindisfarne is one of the most intensely 
interesting and powerfully painted in English poetry. The 
victims, a young, beautiful, and faithful, but ill-requited 
woman, roused by the passions of love, and jealousy, and 
resentment, to deeds against her rival of a deadly character, 
and the sordid wretch by whom she strove to accomplish 
her vengeance. The high spirit of the woman, which rises 
and towers over the heads of her judges in majesty of in- 
jured feeling, and the base fear of the man, 

Who shamed not loud to moan and howl ; 

His hody on the floor to dash, 

And crouch like hound beneath the lash, 

contrast finely, as does the impassioned eloquence of the 
unhappy lady, with the awe-stricken aspects of her judges, 
who pronounce the fatal words, 

Sister, let thy sorrows cease, 
Sinful brother part in peace ; 

and hurry up to the light of day. The place a dungeon, 
whose access was a secret, except to the abbot and a few of 
his familiars, a hundred steps below the surface, where the 
thunder of the ocean above it was heard as a dull sound ; 
the figures of the judges in their monastic robes and seated 
on their stone seats ; the dim cresset showing the sepulchral 
vault, the two executioners and the two niches ready to re- 
ceive their living victims, and the stones and mortar ready 
to build them up — unite to raise the tone of mind to that 
pitch in which even the exaggeration of the midnight pass- 
ing-bell, which is made to be heard fifteen miles off, becomes 
grand and imposing. 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 1 5 3 

Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung; 
Northumbrian rocks in answer rung ; 
To Warkworth cell the echoes rolled, 
His beads the wakeful hermit told ; 
The Bamborough peasant raised his head, 
But slept ere half a prayer he said ; 
So far was heard the mighty knell, 
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell, 
Spread his broad nostril to the wind, 
Listed before, aside, behind, 
Then crouched him down beside the hind, 
And quaked amid the mountain fern, 
To hear that sound so dull and stern. 

But Scott was aware of the excellent effect of connecting 
as much of the circumjacent country as possible with the 
scene of his subject. The youthful reader of Marmion will 
recollect the pleasure with which he perused the description 
of the voyage of the abbess of Whitby and her nuns to Holy 
Isle ; and no one can have passed over the high ground of the 
Great North road, between Alnwick and Belford, without 
being struck with admiration at the vast extent of sea and 
shore thence beheld, embracing nearly the very places which 
he has included in the following lines. 

And now the vessel skirts the strand 
Of mountainous Northumberland; 
Towers, towns, and halls successive rise, 
And catch the nuns' delighted eyes. 
Monkwearmouth soon behind them lay, 
And Tynemouth's priory and bay : 
They marked amid her trees, the hall 
Of lofty Seaton Delaval ; 
They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods 
Rush to the sea through sounding woods ; 
They passed the tower of Widdrington, 
Mother of many a valiant son; 
At Coquet Isle their beads they tell 
To the good saint who owned the cell. 



154 VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 

Then did the Alne attention claim, 

And Warkworth proud of Percy's name ; 

And next they crossed themselves to hear 

The whitening breakers sound so near, 

Where boiling through the rocks, they roar 

On Dunstanborough's caverned shore. 

Thy tower, proud Bamborough, marked they there ; 

King Ida's castle huge and square 

From its tall rock look grimly down, 

And on the swelling ocean frown. 

Then from the coast they bore away, 

And reached the Holy Island's bay. 

We left the coach and dined at Belford, and set off for 
Holy Island. From the hill above the town we saw it 
lying off the coast below, at apparently no great distance. 
The distance is, nevertheless, four good miles, yet a plea- 
sant walk through fields and past farm-houses, with the wide 
wild sea-view before us ; to our right Bamborough Castle, 
on its lofty rock, and in the offing the Fern and Staple 
Islands. When we reached the strand, the scene was wild 
and solemn. Scott conducts his fair bevy of voyagers 
thither at high water. 

The tide did now his flood-mark gain, 
And girdled in the saint's domain ; 
For with the flow and ebb the style 
Varies from continent to isle ; 
Dry-shod o'er sands twice every day 
The pilgrims to the shrine find way : 
Twice every day the waves efface 
Of staves and sandaled feet the trace. 

But we arrived at low-water, and the sands between the 
mainland and Isle, called Fenham Flats, were partly bare 
and partly intersected with creeks and pools of salt water. 
If the pilgrims could cross twice a-day dryshod,it was more 
than we could do. We were told, indeed, that it might be 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 155 

done, but only by those who knew both the track and the 
proper hour ; those who are ignorant of these, run a good 
chance of being set fast in quicksands, or overtaken by the 
tide, for it is more than a mile across. We imagine, too, 
that the holy pilgrims were not dainty about wetting their 
sandals. We found it necessary to pursue, the curvature 
of the shore, which forms a vast circuit at the lower end of 
the inlet. From this point of view the projecting land and the 
island appear a continuous range running for some miles 
parallel to the shore, a brown and jagged range of rocks 
and sand-banks, worn and torn by the ocean into an aspect 
sufficiently savage. On our right hand run these sand- 
banks, high, and thrown up in irregular heaps, and over- 
grown with sea-grass, behind them the ocean booming with 
an awful grandeur. The strand was rent and undermined by 
the violence of the tides. In some places patches of smooth 
turf overhung the beach, crimson with flowering thrift ; in 
others huge masses of the sward were lying half-buried in 
the sands. The sand-hills were at intervals scooped into 
caves by the assaulting ocean ; an old boat lay half buried 
in the sandy drift ; and long heaps of sea-weeds, shells, and 
pebbles, at high-water mark, added to the picturesque effect 
of the scene. Near these sand-hills we found the strand 
dry, and as we advanced, — 

Higher and higher rose to view, 
The castle with its battled walls, 
The ancient monastery's halls, 
A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile, 
Placed on the margin of the isle : 

and besides these appeared a solitary hut on the sandy pro- 
montory, and two tall white obelisks, — land-marks which 
kept continually varying their apparent relative position in 
that singular manner that most of my readers must have 
noticed. We reached the hut, and wished for the pencil of 



!56 VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 

Collins to preserve the aspect of it and its locality. It was 
a fisherman's abode, erected in this wilderness of sand-hills, 
with all those adjuncts of boats, nets, pitch-casks, and rem- 
nants of fish, that are scattered about such places. There 
were rabbits in abundance running in and out of their sandy 
burrows ; and cows, which if they did not live on this coarse 
and rigid sea-grass, it was a wonder on what they did live. 
As we stood looking on this isolated tenement, out came a 
whole troop of grotesquely clad children, with the half-shy 
and half-curious air that solitary children have. But this 
spot was not so solitary as it seemed, for here the promon- 
tory terminated, and across a passage of not more than a 
quarter of a mile wide lay Holy Island. On the summit of 
a range of dark rocks opposite, appeared the ruins of Lin- 
disfarne Abbey, and to our right the castle, perched on, or 
rather built into, the summit of a singular and most inacces- 
sible pile of rock. In this are stationed a few individuals 
of the preventive service, and a king's cutter is generally 
cruising not far off. Some fishermen on the island observed 
us, and put across for us. Truly a wild place, and an am- 
phibious population ! Evening was coming fast upon us, 
and no doubt greatly heightened the effect. We landed under 
a dark range of cliffs, on a shore scattered with huge blocks 
fallen from above. There were numbers of sailor-looking 
figures about ; boats drawn on shore, drying-houses, fish 
bones scattered around, and all the signs of a fishing-place. 
We climbed the cliff, and at once appeared the ruins of the 
abbey, and a village just by them. Troops of children 
were at play, and their familiar cries sounded strangely in 
this desolate-looking place. The population of the island 
is about five hundred souls. It has its school, its shops, and 
its resident clergyman. What a place for the constant abode 
of a man of cultivated tastes ! and yet how many much 
more isolated stations do Christian ministers occupy, and in 
these kingdoms too — in the Orkneys and Shetlands for in- 



VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 157 

stance. And how much more unselfish, how much more 
devoted to the truest objects of mortal ambition and duty are 
they than we, if men, however lowly, however ignorant, 
and cut off from the ordinary haunts of society, the occu- 
piers of the outposts, of the habitable world, be still the 
children of one common parent, and worth seeking and 
gathering into the great human family. 

We found the ruins of the abbey far surpassing our ex- 
pectation, both in extent and beauty. They are of a massy 
construction, but of genuine Saxon, and in a state of 
preservation, their age and exposure considered, truly 
remarkable. The description in the poem is one of the 
many instances of the extreme accuracy of Sir Walter's 
details. 

In Saxon strength the abbey frowned, 
With massive arches broad and round, 
That rose alternate, row and row, 
On ponderous columns, short and low, 
Built ere the art was known, 
By pointed aisle and shafted stalk, 
The arcades of an alleyed walk 
To emulate in stone. 
On the deep walls, the heathen Dane 
Had poured his impious rage in vain ; 
And needful was such strength to these, 
Exposed to the tempestuous seas, 
Scourged by the winds' eternal sway, 
Open to rovers fierce as they, 
Which could twelve hundred years withstand 
Winds, waves, and northern pirates' band. 
Not but that portions of the pile, 
Rebuilded in a later style, 
Showed where the spoiler's hand had been; 
Not but the wasting sea-breeze keen, 
Had worn the pillar's carving quaint, 
And mouldered in his niche the saint, 
14 



158 VISIT TO LINDISPARNE, 

And rounded, with consuming power, 
The pointed angles of each tower ; 
Yet still entire the abhey stood, 
Like veteran worn but unsubdued. 

The line put in' italics expresses the very peculiar cha- 
racter of the massy columns here. There is a singular 
arch of grand dimensions, stretching in a diagonal direction 
from one part of the fabric to another, and richly adorned 
with the Saxon zigzag. It appears to have been a sort of 
bridgeway to some upper part of the building, reached by 
a spiral staircase. The walls about the arch itself have dis- 
appeared, and it stands in its naked grandeur, " like a rain- 
bow in the sky," — on seeing it, we exclaimed, " How like 
a rainbow !" " Yes," said the guide, " it is called the rain- 
bow-arch. The boys delight, above everything, to get up 
and walk across it, high and unprotected as it is. For this 
reason the staircase leading to it has been built up, but still 
the lads will climb aloft. They stick their fingers and toes 
into the crevices of the masonry, and up they go." 

Within the ruins of the abbey stands a rustic chapel, built 
from the fallen stones ; and within its green inclosure rest 
the dead of the island. There was one circumstance which 
struck me in reading the inscriptions, both here and in the 
burying-ground of Tynemouth Priory — the numbers of 
deaths by shipwreck and other seafaring causes, which 
are recorded in these maritime cemeteries, and which makes 
them so different to any others. There is something both 
strangely fascinating to the imagination and touching to the 
heart in these records : so many memorials raised by the 
weeping spirits of the living, to husbands, brothers, sons, 
and lovers, whose bodies lie in the depths of the sea, and in 
every region of it. One is made to feel with a perception 
nowhere else so living, over what wastes of waters,into what 
far off seas, our countrymen go. There is no part of earth 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. I59 

or ocean whither they do not find some cause to lead them ; 
there is no shore, desert or inhabited, where their bones do 
not lie : and if one could but summon around us at some 
one time those whose names are here, but whose bodies are 
absent, there would be such a combination of adventures, 
of sufferings and experiences, as never yet was penned in 
any volume. Every stone around you has a fact upon its 
face which rouses a strong spirit of inquiry in your bosom. 
One died in mid-sea as he was homeward bound ; one 
perished in saving the life of another, who had fallen over- 
board. One fell in a great sea-fight, whose very name is a 
portion of England's glory ; others in desperate attempts to 
seize on important stations in America, North or South, the 
Indies, East or West. Others were the victims of some 
plague-shore, that swallowed up its thousands. These died 
in some tropical clime ; those were wrecked in sight of home, 
on England's own rocks. There is no fiction, however ro- 
mantic, but here finds a more striking fact ; and the names 
of every nation and place of mercantile resort meet your 
eye on every hand — Chili and Mexico, Quebec and Mon- 
treal, the Straits of Magellan and the Cape of Good Hope, 
Newfoundland and New Zealand, are brought together in 
strange juxta-position in these maritime cemeteries. And 
it is not only the memory of those who died thus distant 
that is recorded here, but the bodies of many a foreigner, 
and many a mariner from remote parts of England, who have 
been wrecked on these coasts, here take their rest. 

Another cause of admiration, not the less strong, which 
came over us in looking on these stately ruins, was that 
such a fabric should be raised in such a place. What could 
induce the holy fathers to pitch on such desolate and isolated 
places in preference to the fair vales and rich lands of Eng- 
land ? It was a principle of action widely differing from 
that of the Romish church. There must have been some- 
thing in the old Saxon and Celtic saints of a very primitive 



160 VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 

character. Holy Island and Iona ! instead of the rich vales 
of Durham and the Lothians. It could not be the loaves, 
however it might be the fishes, which inspired the choice. 
These primitive fathers must have had a pitch of imagina- 
tion highly poetical as well as religious. They must have 
loved the sound of the sea and the rush of the winds ; they 
must have found inspiration in the wild aspect of crags, of 
naked towers, and dashing waves. They must have had 
pleasure in solitude and the solitary enjoyment of know- 
ledge, or in the shepherding of souls that others cared little 
for, or these stately fabrics had never risen in these desolate 
regions. They must have had courage too ; for what a 
sense of exposure does these islands give us, when we re- 
collect that such savages as Norsemen and Vikinger roamed 
these howling seas. One no longer wonders at the repeated 
ravages committed here by the Danes ; the only wonder is 
that St. Cuthbert, instead of fleeing away in his coffin, on 
that miraculous pilgrimage which terminated at Durham, 
did not flee away on his living legs. 

As we quitted the island, the gloom of evening was upon 
it ; the tide was rolling over the sands between it and the 
mainland with whitening billows ; the sea-birds were scud- 
ding about in the gloaming with wild cries, and the roar of 
the ocean beyond the sand-banks was loud and awful. The 
beacon-lights on the Fern and Staples islands shone out ; 
and we walked on in the gathering darkness, strongly im- 
pressed with the wildness of the scene, and glad that we 
had visited it at such a time. 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 161 



FLODDEN FIELD. 

A fearful field in verse to frame, 

I mean, if that to mark ye list. 
O Flodden Mount ! thy fearful name 

Doth sore affray my trembling fist. 

Ballad of Flodden Field. 

From Belford to Flodden ! We have got our seven 
league boots on, and it is but one stride. Nevertheless, 
before we move our right leg, sheathed in our miraculous 
boot, we must take a single note of a stride as marvellous. 
In Marmion's time, gunpowder was doing its work. One 
of those ingredients out of which God works good : it was 
at the very moment that it made carnage more horrible, 
breaking down the pride of physical heroism, and the 
feudal system with it. It took out of the aristocratic warrior 
the vanity of personal prowess, or rather personal strength, 
and placed intellect, with its slave mechanical power, far 
above it ; and it not only took the sting of brute force out of 
the feudal chief, but it knocked down his castle about his 
ears. Out of this state of things arose a new organization 
of civil society ; the spirit of the multitude took a new and 
courageous impulse. What gunpowder was then, steam is 
now ; and the vast projects into which its agency is now 
introduced, will work changes beyond present calculation, 
but assuredly for the spread of more equal knowledge and 
equal distribution of social benefits ; but in the change, 
there must be sufferers, and the innkeepers of the north 
road could tell you their tale on this subject. Is there any 
one who used to travel this road seven years ago, who 
does not perceive a mighty change on it ? Who does not 
miss the throng of carriages on the road, and the bustle at 
the inns which then existed ? In some of these large inns, 

14* 



162 VISIT TO L1NDISFARNE, 

which used to have all the signs of flourishing concerns 
about them, we seemed to be the solitary guests. There 
were long suites of apartments, beds with their gilded cor- 
nices, dining-rooms with their services of plate, — but over 
all, the silence of desertion ; servants at long intervals, and 
landlords with long faces. On venturing to ask the cause, 
"Oh," said our boniface, "everybody now goes from the 
north to London by the steamers, it is all over with post- 
ing !" 

We approached the Field of Flodden with great interest. 
It is a place invested alike by history and poetry with a 
melancholy glory. As the field most fatal to Scotland of all 
those so fatally contested by that disastrous family the 
Stuarts ; as the field where 

The flowers of the forest were a' wede away, 

where indeed fell twelve Scottish earls, thirteen lords, five 
eldest sons of peers, fifty chiefs, knights, and men of emi- 
nence, and ten thousand common men,* — it has a gloomy 
fame peculiar to itself. The Englishman regards it with a 
certain pride, as ground where the brave Earl of Surrey 
maintained the honour of English valour against the bravest 
nation and the most chivalrous monarch with which Eng- 
land ever contended ; and the lapse of time, and the union 
of these two great nations into one peerless empire, have 
rendered the sympathies of the Englishman with that lament- 
ing memory which dictated " the Flowers of the Forest," 
no longer those of a generous foe, but of a sworn brother. 
The blood and the interests of the two realms have been 

* See a detailed catalogue of the bishops, abbots, noblemen, and prin- 
cipal gentlemen, in "Hall's Chronicle," also quoted in Weber's edition 
of the stately old ballad of Flodden Field, where everything relating to 
the battle and those who fought in it is brought together from the chroni- 
cles, historians and tradition. 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 163 

long enough blended into one stream, to annihilate all sen- 
timent of triumph or resentment on one side or the other ; 
and the inhabitants of either side of the border, must now 
tread that field with no other feelings than those of regret 
over the waste of life once made there, and of thankfulness 
that the cause and the occasion are done away for ever. 
No one can stand here without beholding the signal effects 
of the Union. The name of the field itself is one of gloom 
and desolation. Our imaginations naturally picture it as 
black and melancholy; to mine no name in history or 
poetry had a sound so dreary. Our astonishment was 
therefore proportionate to find the " dark Flodden" of the 
poets, so fair and so cultivated ; a scene of plentiful corn- 
fields and comfortable farms. No one can, in fact, approach, 
for the first time, the "Debatable Lands," without surprise 
at their extreme cultivation. That was our feeling all 
through them. We directed our course first to Wooler, 
where the gallant Surrey encamped previous to the battle ; 

The total army did ensue, 

And came that night to Wooler-Haugh. 

Old Ballad of Flodden Field. 

and on reaching the eminence on the opposite side of the 
valley, south-east of the town, we stood in delighted sur- 
prise at the extensive strath, which stretched away to our 
right in the highest state of cultivation. And so we found 
it all along the borders, Where the "rank reivers and 
moss-troopers" used to gallop over moss and moorland, 
there now stretch the richest meadows, the fairest fields. 
The track which used to lie between the two countries, — 
a blasted and desolate region, ravaged with fire and sword, 
drenched with blood, and peopled only with horrible memo- 
ries, — is now turned into a garden. The one country has 
blended so beautifully into the other, that the only line of 
demarcation is one of superior culture and abundance.. In 



164 



VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 



this neighbourhood, up to the very ridges of the Cheviots, 
extend large corn-farms, where all the improvements and 
scientific triumphs of modern agriculture are displayed. 
How rapid has been the recent growth of this remarkable 
cultivation is evidenced by statistical facts, laid before one 
of "the Agricultural Committees" in parliament. There it 
is shown, that between 1795 and 1811, Berwickshire, a 
county especially exposed to the effects of border rains for- 
merly, had, according to the property-tax returns, advanced 
from a rental, of 112,000/., to 231,973/. ; and that the fol- 
lowing parishes in that, and the neighbouring county of 
Roxburgh, in the very neighbourhood of Flodden, had 
made this striking progress : — 



Whitsome parish 

Melrose 

St. Boswells' 

Linton . . 

Yetholm 

Edrom 

Eccles 



Rental in 1795. 


In 1836. 


£ 3,080 


. £ 7,526 


4,000 


. 20,000 


1,700 


3,080 


2,113 


5,514 


2,104 


5,600 


6,493 


. 15,200 


11,000 


. 20,000 



£30,490 



£ 76,920 



An increase in forty years of 166 per cent. Everywhere 
too, on the poorer lands on both sides the border, planting 
has kept an equal pace. We passed extensive woods, 
principally of pine, planted by the Earl of Tankerville, Mr. 
Collingwood, Mr. St. Paul, the Marquis of Waterford, the 
Duke of Roxburgh, and many other gentlemen and noble- 
men. In one thing cultivation had gone too far for us. 
One would have liked to see the site of so memorable a bat- 
tle respected in the general enclosure, and left as national 
property — as commonable land — where the stranger, the 
antiquarian and historian, might ramble at will, without 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 165 

trespass or damage ; or, if this be thought too fanciful by 
our modern utilitarian, that, at least, the King's-chair Hill 
itself should not be destroyed. As you advance from Mill- 
field, you see high before you Flodden Ridge, where James 
first took up his position : this is now covered with a pine- 
wood; and is, as it should be, a conspicuous object from the 
country all round ; but, on arriving at that lower eminence 
of Branksome, whither, Pinkerton tells us that, on the morn- 
ing of the battle, James, setting fire to his tents, descended, 
you find, to your surprise and mortification, that this very 
hill is in course of demolition, its very summit being turned 
into a stone quarry ; as if no other stone existed in this 
neighbourhood, or as if that, which stands as a national 
monument, was only worthy of mending roads and erecting 
pigstyes ! Whose act and deed this is we know not, but 
every lover of Scottish antiquities should make his most 
strenuous protestation against it. 

Just below this King's-Chair Hill a farm-house has been 
erected, since the enclosure of what are called the Brank- 
some allotments ; and here is the little well which Scott has 
made the site of the Cross of Sybil Grey, — 

A cross of stone, 
That on a hillock standing lone, 
Did all the field command ; 

and which he has marked as the death-spot and grave of 
Marmion. It is, in fact, the well which supplies the house, 
and stands in the yard, so that a good deal of the pic- 
turesque of the poet's description has gone from that, too. 

Time 's wasting hand has done away 
The simple cross of Sybil Grey, 

And broke her fount of stone ; 
And yet from out the little hill 
Oozes the slander springlet still. 



166 VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 

Oft halts the stranger there, 
For thence may hest his curious eye, 
The memorable field descry ; 

And shepherd boys repair 
To seek the water-flag and rush, 
And rest them by the hazel bush, 

And plait their garlands fair ; 
Nor dream they sit upon the grave, 
That holds the bones of Marmion brave. 

Both hazel bush, water-flag, rush, and shepherd boys, have 
all vanished before an Act of Parliament and the plough. 
Hence, however, you have a full and wide view of the 
scenery of the battle to Twiz el-bridge and castle, where the 
English crossed the Till. From Flodden ridge you may 
see, in the direction of Millfield, Ford Castle, the seat of the 
Herons, whose conquest was so fatal to James, — now the 
property of the Marquis of Waterford. The features of 
the battle-field have been tamed down by the hand of cul- 
tivation ; the open waste of "red Flodden" has given way 
to hedges ; its heather to corn ; and the very King's Chair 
itself is broken by the hammer and the pick ; but the wooded 
ridge and the little well will not easily be annihilated ; and 
many a ruin or site in the neighbourhood, connected with 
the field of Flodden, or with stirring passages in border war- 
fare, render this a most delightful resort for a summer-day's 
party ; especially of such as have hearts and imaginations 
to raise again the ruined ranks, and see, as Scott saw, the 
last scene of that contest, when — 

On the darkening heath 
More desperate grew the strife of death, 
The English shafts in volleys hailed, 
In headlong charge their horse assailed ; 
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep, 
To break the Scottish circle deep, 
That fought around their king. 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 167 

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, 
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, 
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, 

Unbroken was the ring. 
The stubborn spearmen still made good 
Their dark impenetrable wood, 
Each stepping where his comrade stood, 

The instant that he fell. 
No thought was there of dastard flight ; 
Linked in the sorried phalanx tight, 
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, 

As fearlessly and well ; 
Till utter darkness closed her wing 
O'er their thin host, and wounded king. 
Then skilful Surrey's sage commands 
Led back from strife his shattered bands; 

And from the charge they drew; 
As mountain waves from wasted lands 

Sweep back to ocean blue. 
Then did their loss his foemen know ; 
Their king, their lords, their mightiest low, 
They melted from the field as snow 
When streams are swoln, and south winds blow, 

Dissolves in silent dew. 
Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash, 

While many a broken band, 
Disordered, through her currents dash, 

To gain the Scottish land ; 
To town and tower, to down and dale, 
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale 
And raise the universal wail. 
Tradition, legend, tune and song, 
Shall many an age that wail prolong; 
Still from the sire the son shall hear 
Of the stern strife and carnage drear, 

Of Flodden's fatal field, 
Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear, 

And broken was her shield. 

The ballads and traditions of Scotland are full of the 



163 VISIT TO LINDISFARNE, 

lamentation and the desolation long produced there by this 
fatal battle. 

« The Scots/' says Sir Walter Scott, " were much dis- 
posed to dispute the fact that James IV. had fallen on Flod- 
den Field. Some said he had retired from the kingdom, 
and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Others pretended 
that, in the twilight, when the field was nigh ended, four 
tall horsemen came into the field, having each a bunch of 
straw on the point of their spears, as a token for them to 
know each other by. They said these men mounted the king 
on a dun hackney, and that he was seen to cross the Tweed 
with them at nightfall. Nobody pretended to say what 
they did with him, but it was believed he was murdered in 
Howe Castle ; and I recollect about forty years since, that 
there was a report that, in cleaning the draw-well of that 
ruinous fortress, the workmen found a skeleton wrapt in a 
bull's hide, and having a belt of iron round the waist. 
There was, however, no truth in this rumour. It was the 
absence of this belt of iron which the Scots founded upon 
to prove that the body of James could not have fallen into 
the hands of the English, since they either had not that 
token to show, or did not produce it. But it is not unlikely 
that he would lay aside such a cumbrous article of penance 
on a day of battle ; or the English, when they despoiled his 
person, may have thrown it aside as of no value. The body 
which the English affirm to have been that of James, was 
found on the field by Lord Dacre, and carried by him to 
Berwick and presented to Surrey. Both of these lords 
knew James's person too well to be mistaken. The body 
was also acknowledged by his two favourite attendants, Sir 
William Scott, and Sir James Forman, who wept at be- 
holding it." 

The singular history of these remains, Stow, in his " Sur- 
vey of London," 4to, p. 539, thus furnishes from his own 
knowledge. What a strange end for so proud and chival- 



FLODDEN FIELD, ETC. 169 

rous a king, and what treatment from the hands of a brother- 
in-law — Henry VIII. — who certainly refused the body 
Christian burial ! 

"After the battle, the bodie of the same king being found, 
was closed in lead, and conveyed from thence to London, 
and to the monasterie of Sheyne in Surrey, where it remained 
for a time, in what order I am not certaine ; but since the dis- 
solution of that house, in the reygne of Edward the Sixt, 
Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolke, being lodged, and keeping 
house there, I have been shewed the same bodie so lapped 
in lead, close to the head and bodie, throwne into a waste 
room amongst the old timber, lead, and other rubble. Since 
the which time, workmen there, for their foolish pleasure, 
hewed orT his head ; and Lancelot Young, master glazier to 
Queen Elizabeth, feelinge a sweet savour to come from 
thence, and yet the form remaining, with the hair of the 
head and beard red, brought it to London to his house in 
Wood-street, where (for a time) he kept it for the sweet- 
ness ; but, in the end, caused the sexton of that church to 
bury it amongst other bones, taken out of their charneL" 



15 



r 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 



The man of genius is often looked upon as a being that 
shuts himself up, and knows little of what is going on in the 
real world around him, He is supposed to live in a fairy- 
land of his own creation — often a very barren and profit- 
less one — full of all manner of enchantments and magical 
delusions. In reference to him, men of arts and sciences, 
the men of spinning-jennies and steam-engines — nay, the 
naturalists, and many other writers — talk of themselves as 
practical men. They often smile at the poet and the ro- 
mance-writer, as men of the world affect to do, and say, — 
"Ola very clever, a very clever fellow indeed ; but as 
ignorant of actual life as a child." But the poets and ro- 
mancers of late have proved themselves both to be profita- 
ble fellows and practical ones. To say nothing of the vast 
sums coined from the brain of Scott and of Byron ; look at 
the comfortable nest which Moore has feathered for himself. 
Very pretty sums he has fobbed now and then. See old 
George Crabbe going down to his parsonage with 3000/. in 
his saddle-bags at one time. Look at the poet's house at 
Kewsick : it has a library in it which has cost a fortune ; 
and the poet and the historian sits there now, what with 
salaries, pensions, Quarterly Review articles and residuary 
legateeships, as no inconsiderable man of substance. There 
is that "old man eloquent" too, his neighbour at Rydal 
Mount, who, if he have not amassed a mount of gold on 
which to build his palace, has got a poet's bower on one of 
the most delicious little knolls in Europe, warmed by as 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 171 

much affection and domestic peace as ever crowned one 
man's hearth ; and having no mark or stamp of poverty 
about it. Yes, and spite of Edinburgh and Quarterly, and 
a host of lower critics who echoed their owl-notes, his poetry 
is become fashionable ! Only think of that — " The Idiot 
Boy" and "Betty Foy," "The Old Wanderer" in his worsted 
stockings, and "Michael" and " The Wagoner," become 
fashionable, so that every critic who knows no more of 
poetry than he did ten years ago, now cries "glorious ! di- 
vine ! inimitable !" at every new edition of his poems. Yes, 
and so they shall cry — for such is the ultimate triumph of 
general sense and taste over professional stupidity. His 
poetry is become golden in all senses ; and if government 
only act in the matter of copyright as a British government 
ought to act,* it will flow on in a golden stream to his 
children's children, to the third and fourth — ay, to the for- 
tieth and four-hundredth generation. 

These are your dreamless and thriftless poets of the pre- 
sent days ! But they are not merely the profitable, they 
are the really practical men too. We ask, where would 
your Watts and Boltons be, if it were not for them ? Why, 
it is they — it is the men of poetical genius — who build 
your steam-boats and steam-coaches. The man of genius 
is not now merely a scrawler on paper, a writer of poems 
or of tales ; but his pen has become a magician's wand — 
the most potent one that was ever wielded : and while other 
men think that he is merely inditing some pleasant lay, or 
matter for a winter evening's fireside, they who see farther 
into a millstone know that he is actually building ships and 
boats, steam-engines and steam-carriages ; launching new 
and splendid packets ; laying down railroads, and carrying 
them through mountain and forest ; erecting inns, furnishing 

* Not, however, by passing Mr. Serjeant Talfourd's present bill, with 
its retrospective clause, to smooth the bristled manes of the booksellers. 



172 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 



them with hosts, and guests, and waiters ; spreading tables 
with every delicacy of the season — as witness, ye grouse 
on many a heathery hill, ye herrings of Loch Fine, and 
salmon of countless lochs, and rivers running like silver from 
the mountains — spreading them for thousands who run to 
and fro in the earth ; not merely increasing knowledge of 
one another, but the good luck of landlords, and the employ- 
ment of whole troops of poor and deserving men. The man 
of genius does this, and more : he creates joint-stock com- 
panies, he invests large capitals, he makes captains and 
stewards of steamers, clerks, coachmen, and sailors — these, 
and many other creatures after their kind, are of his crea- 
tion. Does any one doubt it ? — Why, Sir Walter Scott has 
done more than this, of his single arm. See what he has 
done for Scotland. See every summer, and all summer 
long, what thousands pour into that beautiful country, ex- 
ploring every valley, climbing every mountain, sailing on 
every frith and loch, and spreading themselves and their 
money all through the land. And what roads and steam- 
vessels, what cars and coaches are prepared for them ! what 
inns are erected ! and yet not half enow — so rapidly does 
the spirit of the poetical and picturesque spread — so won- 
derfully do the numbers of its votaries increase, seeking a 
little easement of their swollen purses, a little outlet for all 
their taste and enthusiasm. No less than nine hundred 
persons, on a daily average, pass through the single city of 
Glasgow, chiefly of this class of persons, set astir by this 
great spirit which has of late years sprung up, the work of 
our poets and romancers. In summer all the inns are filled 
jam-full ; trains of omnibuses, or omnibi, are flying down 
to the Broomielaw every hour, to discharge the contents of 
the inns into the steamers, and return with the living cargoes 
of the steamers to the inns. Every hour the bell of some 
packet, bound to the Highlands, the Western Isles, Ireland, 
Wales, and all such places, attractive as the very land of the 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 173 

Genii to poetical imaginations, is heard ringing out its call to 
the picturesque and pleasure-hunters ; and that call is obeyed 
by swarms of eager tourists, to the height of all human 
astonishment. 

And when did all this grow up ? — "0," say the mere 
mechanic heads, " why, when steam created such facilities." 
Yes, since the steam of poetic brains created them ! Where 
wouldyour steamboats and your railroads have been leading 
us, do you think, if Bishop Percy had not collected the glo- 
rious ballads of nature and of heroism that were scattered 
over Scotland and England — the leaves of a new Sibyl, a 
million times more fateful and pregnant with wonders than 
the old ; if Bishop Percy had not done this, and set on fire 
the kindred heads of Southey, of Wordsworth, and of Scott ; 
if the " Border Minstrelsy" had not been gathered by Scott ; 
if ballads and eclogues of a new school, if poems full of a 
pensive beauty and a pure love, had not been framed by 
Southey ; if Wordsworth had not — stricken, as he con- 
fesses, by the mighty power of nature through this very me- 
dium — gone wandering all over the mountains of Cumber- 
land, filling his heart with the life of the hills, and the soul 
of the over-arching heavens, and the peace or passion of hu- 
man existence hidden in glens and recesses where poets had 
ceased to look for them ; — if the last of these great men had 
not come forth again in a fresh character, with metrical ro- 
mances, and with historical romances in prose, pouring a 
new spirit through field and forest • bringing down from the 
mountains of the north a clan life, and race of fiery warriors, 
with their pride, their superstitions, their bloody quarrels, 
their magnanimity of mutual devotion and fatal loyalty, 
such as we should otherwise never have known ; and, be- 
sides this, peopling mountain and glen, palace and cottage, 
garrison and town, with a host of characters which live and 
move before us, as if they were not the offspring of a mortal 
brain 2 but of the earth and the heavens themselves ? I say, 

15* 



J74 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

where would these steamboats and railroads now have been 
leading their passengers ? Why, dully enough, to the market 
— to purchase cottons and printed calicoes in Glasgow, 
Paisley, and Manchester ; ashes and indigo in Liverpool ; 
teas, and a thousand other things in London ! They would 
be going, not the pack-horse, but the railroad round of dull 
and wearisome commerce, wearing out his own soul by his 
over-drudgery; and, even of these, there would not have been 
a tithe of the present outgoers. But now, the soul which has 
been crushed under the weight of daily duty, has felt a spark 
of this great spirit, has felt an indefinable impulse, which is,in 
fact, the nascent love of nature and out-of-door liberty; and, in 
the summer months, the weavers and spinners, the thump- 
ers and bumpers, the grinders and shearers, the slaves of 
the desk, the warehouse, the bank, and the shop, leap up, 
and issue forth — as bear witness Sir George Head — by 
hundreds and by thousands, in all directions, for a pleasure 
that their fathers, poor old fellows ! never dreamed of on the 
most auspicious night of their lives. boats, whether on 
canal or river, driven by steam or drawn by horse ! 
ships, on loch or frith, or ocean prop elled by engines of 
three-hundred-horse-power ! cabs and cars, omnibi and 
stages, inns and lodging-houses, wayside rests and fishing 
taverns, Tom-and-Jerries Tillysue s or Kidley- Winks ! bear 
ye witness to the tribes set on fire by this Walter Scott, these 
poets, and even these naturalists — Bewick, Walton, Gil- 
bert White, and that class of quiet agitators — tribes who 
have gone forth, to scramble up hills and tumble down them, 
to sport parasols amongst frightened sheep, and scream on 
precipices that they may fall into the arms of careful lovers ; 
to eat beef-steaks, and drink ginger-beer and soda-water, with 
open windows, and under trees, in boats or in booths — 
bear witness, all of you, in all quarters of these islands ! Let 
us hear no more about the poets not being practical men : 
they are the men practical and promotive of public wealth 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 175 

and activity ; they are your true political economists, your 
diffusers of the circulating medium ; in fact, your ship-build- 
ers, house-builders ; smiths, black, white, or copper ; your 
tailors and clothiers : your very hosts, cads, waiters, and 
grooms — for, to all these, they give not merely employment, 
but life and being itself. 

And yet it is a curious fact, that the poets and the me- 
chanists struck out into a new and bolder line together ; 
that this new growth and outburst of intellect and ideality 
— this revival in the world of mind — indicated its pre- 
sence at once in the imaginative and the constructive crania. 
It is curious that steam, mechanism, and poetry, should have 
been brought simultaneously to bear in so extraordinary a 
degree on the public spirit and character. The love of 
poetry and nature, of picturesque scenery and summer- 
wandering, no sooner were generated by the means I have 
here stated, than lo ! steamers appeared at the quays, and 
railroads projected their iron lines over hill and dale. Im- 
pulse was given at the same moment to the public heart, 
and facility to yield to it. Had the one appeared without 
the other, there must have been felt a painful restraint, an 
uncomprehended but urgent want. Had the poetic spirit 
come alone, it would have lacked wings to fly to the moun- 
tains and the ocean shores. Had the mechanic impetus 
arisen without this, it would have wanted employment for 
its full energies. Their advent was coincident ; and their 
present effect is amazing, and their future one a matter of 
wild speculation and wonder. 

But there is yet another feature of this subject that is 
worthy of notice ; and that is, how cunningly our great 
masters have gone to work. Call them dreaming and im- 
provident ! It is the most absurd abuse of language ever 
committed. There is no class of men more notorious for 
saving and care-taking than that of your great geniuses. 
Accordingly, as we go through the country, propelled in the 



176 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

human tide by the double power of poetry and steam, what 
is one of the first facts that seizes on your attention ? Why, 
the ingenuity and tact with which these thoughtless poets 
and air-dreaming romancers have laid hold, not only of the 
most glorious subjects, but the most glorious scenes. They 
know that, next to a popular theme, is the popular location 
of it — and what beautiful spot is there now, from Land's- 
End to John-O'Groat's — what spot known for its loveli- 
ness, or sacred for its history, or made mysteriously inter- 
esting by traditions — on which they have not seized ? The 
monks were said, of old, to have pounced upon all the para- 
disaical valleys and rich nooks of the country ; but the poets 
have pounced upon them now. The ancients were accused of 
having robbed us of all our fine thoughts and spirit-stirring 
topics ; but the modern poets have taken away our very 
mountains and battle-fields, our fairy haunts and our waters, 
lying under the beautifying lights and shades of love, and 
heroism, and sorrow. They have preoccupied them before 
our very eyes. There is nothing which has impressed me 
so much with the prescience and deep sagacity of our great 
modern geniuses, as the care with which they have perched 
themselves on every pleasant nook and knoll all over the 
land. It reminds me, ludicrous as the illustration is, of the 
nursery-tale of the young bears that came into their house ; 
and one said, " Who has taken my fork ?" and another, 
" Who has eaten of my bread ?" and a third, " Who has 
sate in my chair ?" and another, " Who is this sleeping in 
my bed , ? " Every spot of interest has this Scott, this Words- 
worth, or this Campbell appropriated — and who does not 
admire their policy ? The grandeur and intellectuality of a 
subject may, of themselves, give it a great charm ; but it is 
better to have two strings to your bow — a subject noble 
and beautiful in itself, linked to noble and beautiful scenery ; 
not confined to the library or the fireside book, but thrown, 
as it were, in the way of the public, cast before the summer 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. I77 

wanderers, where natural beauty and traditional romance 
exert a double influence. What a fine effect it has, both 
for poet and reader, when, as you stop to admire some 
lovely landscape, some sublimity of mountain or sea-shore, 
you hear it said — " This is the scenery of Marmion — this 
is the Castle of Ellangowan — this is the spot where Helen 
M'Gregor gave her celebrated breakfast — here fought 
Baillie Nicol Jarvie with his red-hot ploughshare — this is 
Lammermuir — or this is Artornish Hall." What a charm 
and a glory suddenly invest the place ! How deep sinks the 
strain of the bard or the romancer into your soul ! The 
adroitness with which great names have thus been written 
— not on perishable paper, but on every rock and moun- 
tain of the land — is admirable. To compare great things 
with small — it is like the hand-writing on the wall, of War- 
ren, or of Mechi ; it is seen everywhere, and who shall pos- 
sibly erase it from his mind ? But, admirable as the plan 
is, who shall now adopt it ? The day and the opportunity 
are past. Did the same ability exist to inscribe places at 
once to the glory of the poet and their own name, it is too 
late ; the field is preoccupied. The clan regions and the 
Borders of Scotland — ground rife with matter — are all 
Scott's, by right of discovery, and by the mighty hand of 
the conqueror. If you go to the isles — Shetland, Hebri- 
dean, or Orcadian — he has been there too ; and Campbell 
has there placed his name, in Runic cipher, with that of 
Reullura and the " dark-attired Culdee." Wordsworth is — - 

Sole king of rocky Cumberland. 

Scott, again, extends his influence over Durham, Derby^ 
shire, and Warwickshire ; and southward, tradition becomes 
more faint — all, at least, which Shakspeare has not appro- 
priated, and what he left to his proper heirs. We cannot, 
indeed, say what genius may yet draw from material which 



178 VI S!T TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

still lies unseen or unregarded — for its power is boundless ; 
but, in the mean time, let us wander over a few spots of 
consecrated ground, and admire what has been done by " the 
giants that have been in the land.' 7 



SCENERY OF " THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTON." 

We visited this scenery much in the order in which it is 
introduced to our notice in Wordsworth's poem. First, the 
White Doe is seen at Bolton Priory; then you have a 
glimpse of the history of the Shepherd Lord, and his resi- 
dence, Barden Tower ; lastly, the poet takes you to Rylston, 
and enters, with earnest heart, into the fate of the Nortons. 
We took the same course. We walked from Skipton Castle 
to Bolton Priory, on the morning of the 6th of July. The 
country had nothing very remarkable in it, if we except the 
wild aspect of Rumbold's Moor — a corruption of Ro mil- 
ley's Moor — on our left as we went; nothing which bore 
any relation to that exquisite scenery which we looked for 
in the neighbourhood of Bolton. As we drew near, indeed, 
we could not help saying repeatedly — " We fear we shall 
be disappointed in this place." Presently, however, a 
valley filled with dense wood appeared below us, stretching 
away northwards. We came to a few cottages in their 
gardens, to a high stone wall ; and passing through a small 
arched gateway, the valley and ruins of Bolton Priory lay 
before us ; one of the most delicious and paradisiacal scenes 
which the heart of England holds. The effect upon our 
spirits Was one of profound and soothing delight. We sate 
down on a rustic bench placed just within the gateway, and 
contemplated it in silent enjoyment. We were on a green 
elevation, somewhat above the valley, and the scene lay 
before us in all its loveliness; a vale in which all the 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 179 

charms of peaceful variety, which poetry delights to com- 
bine in some fairy paradise, were concentrated. It was a 
splendid morning ; and the freshness of the greensward, of 
the trees, the glittering dews, the cheerful voices of birds, 
the profusion of blossoms around on bush and bank, made 
the scene perfect. There were the gables and pinnacles of 
the Priory, appearing amongst a wilderness of trees in the 
open bosom of the valley ; there was the Wharf, sounding 
on his way with a most melancholy music, under the cliffs 
opposite ; there was the silver line of a waterfall, thrown 
from a cliff of considerable and nearly perpendicular height, 
a cliff of rich purple hue, facing the eastern end of the 
Priory ; there were the parsonage, and other houses 
shrouded in their trees ; beyond, lay the deep and densely- 
wooded vale ; on the northern slope above it, the ancient 
oaks of the park ; and still farther, the fells and rocky 
distances of Barden and Simon-Seat. Whittaker, in his 
" History of Craven," says well that, for picturesque effect, 
the site of this Bolton Priory has no equal amongst the 
northern houses, and perhaps in England. 

As we descended and walked towards the Priory, the 
parsonage presented a very inviting aspect. Its garden, 
crimson with roses ; its old ivied porch, in a sort of toAver, 
with an ancient escutcheon emblazoned on it — I believe of 
the Clifford arms; its pleasant shrubberies, and its little 
garden gateway up a few steps, overhung, on each hand, 
with drooping masses of yellow fumitory, made it one of 
the most perfect little rural nests we ever set eyes upon. 
As soon as we passed this, the Priory broke upon us with 
a fine effect. We need not attempt to describe it ; it is a fit 
subject for the pencil only ; and the pencils of many of our 
artists, particularly that of Turner, have made it familiar to 
the public eye. The magnificent ash-trees, however, which 
grew about, deserve especial mention. One, in particular, 
secured with iron hoops and stays from the effects of storms 



180 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

on its mighty limbs, showed that their beauty was felt and 
appreciated : and indeed, the ash about this place generally, 
has an extraordinary stateliness and grandeur of growth. 

The nave of the Priory church is now used for a paro- 
chial chapel. 

In the shattered fabric's heart 

Remaineth one protected part — 

A rural chapel, neatly drest, 

In covert like a little nest ; 

And thither young and old repair 

On Sabbath-day, for praise and prayer. 

White Doe, p. 8. 

But the most singular feature of this beautiful structure, is 
a tower, or western entrance, built like a screen before the 
old western entrance. This was begun by Prior Moore, 
the last prior before the dissolution, but never finished. It 
possesses a fine receding arch, and is embellished with 
shields, statues, and a window of exquisite tracery. 
Amongst others on this part of the work, is the statue of a 
pilgrim, with a staff in one hand, and a broad, flat, round 
hat in the other. The buttresses are surmounted with 
figures of hounds. Within this, partly darkened and 
partly hidden by it, appears the old front, with its lancet 
windows and slender columns — a work equally exquisite 
of its kind. The sculpture and carvings of the Priory 
altogether, its running trefoils and fleur-de-lis, have pre- 
served their sharpness and distinctness most remarkably. 

Opposite to this western entrance stands the Duke of 
Devonshire's house — a small castellated building — a mere 
nut-shell to his other houses — Chatsworth, Hardwicke, 
Chiswick, or Devonshire House. In fact, it is formed out 
of the original gateway of the Priory — the principal room 
being the gateway itself, with walls run across it. It serves, 
however, for a sporting-box, when his Grace comes hither 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. IS] 

in autumn to the moors, and contains a marvellous number 
of beds for its compass. The walls of the principal apart- 
ment are adorned with pieces from classical subjects ; with 
horns of stags and antelopes, and with some paintings, 
the most interesting of which are, one of the Boy of Egre- 
mond about to leap the Strid, with his dog in a leash, and 
a puppy at the dog's heels — a circumstance that I do not 
recollect as forming part of the tradition. A portrait of 
Sir Philip Sidney, and a curious picture of the seven sons 
of one of the Earls of Burlington. There is one of the 
celebrated Earl and Countess of Derby ; some family por- 
traits of the Cliffords and Burlingtons ; and several of the 
Charleses and Jameses, and their queens — of little value. 

But our attractions lay out of doors. We hastened down 
to the Wharf, and crossed it, by a row of stepping-stones, 
into the woods on the opposite side. These stones are solid 
square blocks of considerable size, and require some courage 
in the passer ; for, though the river is not deep here, it is 
very rapid, clear, and broad, and rushes on with an awful 
sound, especially after heavy rains, as had been the case 
then ; so that the water flowed, in some places, over the 
stones. Immediately after us came across two young 
ladies, whom we found to be the clergyman's niece, Miss 
Kitty Crofts, and her young friend, Julia somebody. They 
had their rural dinner in a basket, and were going to spend 
the day in the woods. They accompanied us about a mile 
up through the woods, and very politely directed our atten- 
tion to the striking points of the scenery, and gave us direc- 
tions for our course to Barden Tower, which every now 
and then showed itself up the valley. 

Nothing can exceed the beauty and delightfulness of 
these woods, which run on each side of the sounding 
Wharf; and the public owes much to the worthy clergy- 
man, Mr. Carr, for having rendered the forest banks of the 
Wharf accessible, opening up the turns and reaches of the 

16 



182 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

river, and the views of the Priory downwards, and of Bar- 
den Tower upwards, with the most admirable taste and 
erTect. All through the woods, for miles on each side, run 
winding walks ; and wherever seats are placed, there you 
may be sure is some new view of river, ruins, forest, or fell. 
The woods themselves afford a delicious retreat in the noon- 
blaze of a summer's day ; they present such sylvan seclu- 
sion ; such dark and shadowy nooks ; such mossy slopes, 
where spring throws out by thousands her primroses, and 
summer her delicately-veined flowers and green leaflets of 
the oxalis ; such wildernesses of heather and bilberry, of 
ferns and polypodies ; such dim chaos of craggy masses or 
uplifted gray cliffs, hung with ivy and overshadowed with 
boughs. But then, the river below ! — such a dark brooding 
stream at once place ; such a wild hurrying torrent at 
another, sending up its softened roar all through the woods. 
I never saw a stream that so vividly brought before me the 
descriptions of rivers flowing through American forests, 
with their foamy rapids, and their dark woodland steeps, 
and wild boughs overhanging the stream. 

About a mile from the Priory we came to the celebrated 
Strid — 

The pair hath reached that fearful chasm — 

How tempting to bestride ! 

For lordly Wharf is there pent in, 

With rocks on either side. 

This striding-place is called The Strid — 
A name it took of yore ; 
A thousand years hath it borne that name, 
And shall a thousand more. 

And hither is young Romilly come ; 
And what may now forbid 
That he, perhaps for the hundredth time 
Shall bound across The Strid 1 



"VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. !S3 

He sprung in glee, for what cared he 

That the river was strong and the rocks were steep 1 

But the greyhound in the leash hung back, 

And checked him in his leap. 

The boy is in the arms of Wharf, 
And strangled by a merciless force ; 
For never more was young Romilly seen, 
Till he rose a lifeless corse. 

The Force of Prayer. Wordsworth's Poems. 

The Strid is not so much a waterfall as a narrow passage, 
torn by the river through its bed of solid rock, through which 
it rushes with tremendous fury and a stunning din. Many 
people, who go expecting to see a sheer cascade, are at first 
disappointed ; but no one can stand long by it without feel- 
ing a sense of its power and savage grandeur grow upon 
him. It is indeed a place " most tempting to bestride ;" 
and, notwithstanding the repeated fatalities which have oc- 
curred there since that of the boy Egremond — one of a 
young lady, in the very presence of her lover, but a few 
years ago — I felt an intense desire to take the leap, and 
should have done so, had it not been for the earnest dissua- 
sion of my companion. I am, however, very sensible, that, 
narrow as the opening appears, its real width is much greater 
than its apparent one ; and very dangerous, both on that 
account, and from the slipperiness of the rocks. One slip 
of the foot, and the leap is into eternity. 

As we stood here, we were delighted to see the various 
parties that came up, or that were to be seen glancing at 
intervals in the woods — gay young spirits, full of the en- 
joyment of fresh life, of social affection, and natural beauty; 
another proof of the manner in which all places of natural 
or historical interest are now visited — the happy conse- 
quence of the spirit of modern literature ; and we were, per- 
haps, most pleased with the sight of a party of Friends, in 



184 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

their dove-coloured robes and drab bonnets. If you cannot 
see them at places of artificial amusement, there are no 
people whom you now more frequently meet at places of 
natural amusement — a satisfactory evidence that the spirit 
of modern literature has extended itself to them too ; that 
the Wiffehs, the Bartons, the Stickneys, and other writers 
of the Society, are not exceptions, but merely indications of 
that love of poetry, polite literature, and the fine arts, which 
a puritanic zeal in some of its founders unhappily banished 
from it for a time. 

We now advanced to Barden Tower, the walk thither 
being still up the valley along the banks of the Wharf, and 
through the most delightful scenery. The splendour of the 
day, and the beauty of the place, filled us with delight and 
admiration. We crossed a fine bridge to Barden, and soon 
stood before the ruined tower of the Cliffords. 

It is a singular circumstance, out of what peaceful, pro- 
found, old-fashioned nooks, have gone forth some of the 
stormiest, sternest, and most ambitious characters in history. 
Whittaker says — " The shattered remains of Barden Tower 
stand shrouded in ancient woods, and backed by the purple 
distances of the highest fells. An antiquarian eye rests 
with pleasure on a scene of thatched houses and barns, 
which in the last two centuries have undergone as little 
change as the simple and pastoral manners of the inhabi- 
tants." The place, in fact, seems to belong to a past age 
of English history ; to make no part of bustling, swarming, 
steam-engine, and railroad England ; but of England in 
the days of solemn forests, far-off towns, and the most 
peaceful and rustic existence. The tower stands a mere 
shell ; but the cottages about it are those which stood there 
in the days of its glory, and are peopled with a race as pri- 
mitive and quiet as they were then. We inquired for a 
public-house to get a luncheon ; there was no such thing ; 
but we procured bread and butter, and milk, at one of the 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 185 

cottages : and, as we sate looking out of its door, the pro- 
found tranquillity of the scene was most impressive. It 
was a sultry and basking noon ; around were lofty ancient 
woods ; on the opposite slope a few cottages, half-buried 
in old orchards, and gardens with their rows of bee-hives ; 
and an old man at work with his hoe, as slowly and as 
gravely as an object in a dream, or a hermit in his unpar- 
taken seclusion. Yet from this place, and such as this 
issued 

The stout Lord Cliffords that did fight in France, 

ay, and in Scotland and England too — conspicuous in all 
the wars, from the time of the Conqueror to that of Crom- 
well ; the " Old Clifford," and the " Bloody Clifford," who 
slew the young Duke of Rutland, and afterwards the Duke 
of York, hisfather — of Shakspeare's " Henry VI." Thence, 
too, went out the great seafaring Lord Clifford, George, 
third Earl of Cumberland, of Elizabeth's time, who made 
eleven expeditions, chiefly against the Spaniards and Dutch, 
and chiefly too, at his own expense, to the West Indies, 
Spanish America, and Sierra Leone. But the most re- 
markable characters connected with this place are — the 
Shepherd Lord Clifford ; the heroic Countess of Derby, 
daughter of Henry, second Earl of Cumberland, and grand- 
daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and the 
Dowager Queen of France, sister of Henry VIII. , Avhose 
romantic story is known to all readers of English history ; 
and especially Anne Clifford, Dowager Countess of Pem- 
broke and Montgomery, of famous memory ; for the others 
made only occasional visits hither, from their more frequent 
residence of Skip ton Castle, to enjoy field-sports at their 
lodge here ; but Anne Clifford has placed her memorial on 
the very front of the house as its restorer ; and the Shep- 
herd Lord constituted it his principal abode. 

16* 



186 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

Anne Clifford has justly been termed one of the most ex- 
traordinary women which this country has produced. She 
was a woman of a high spirit, a determined will, and many 
good and magnificent qualities, and of a very commensu- 
rate consciousness of them. She did great works, and took 
good care to commemorate them. Two such builders of 
houses and of families, perhaps no nobleman of the present 
day can reckon amongst his female ancestry, as the Duke 
of Devonshire — Anne Clifford, and Bess of Hardwicke. 
The first thing which strikes your attention in front of 
Barden Tower, is this singular inscription : — - 

This Barden Tower was repayred 

By the Ladie Arne Clifford Counte 

sse Dowager of Pemrok.ee Dorsett 

and Montgomery Btroness Clifford 

Westmerland and Vercie Lady of the 

Honor of Skipton in Craven and High 

Sherifesse by inheritance of the 

Countie of Westmoreland in the Yearss 

1658 and 1659 after it had layne 

Ruinous ever since about 1589 when 

Her mother then lay in itt and was 

Great with child with her till 

NoWE THAT IT WAS REPATRED BY 

The said Lady. Is. chapt. 5S. v. 12. 
God's name be praised ! 

The text referred to is — " Thou shalt build up the founda- 
tions of many generations, and thou shalt be called the re- 
pairer of the breach, and the restorer of paths to dwell 
in." 

When she came to her ancestral estates, she found six 
castles in ruins, and the church of Skipton in a similar con- 
dition, from the ravages of the Civil War. She restored 



"VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 187 

them all ; and upon all set this emblazonment of the fact. 
One of the first things which she built, was a work of filial 
piety — a pillar in the highway, at the place where she and 
her unhappy mother last parted, and took their final fare- 
well. She erected monuments to her tutor, Daniell, the 
poetic historian, and to Spenser — the latter in Westminster 
Abbey. She wrote her own life — of which the title-page 
is indeed a title-page, being a whole page of the most vain- 
glorious enumeration of the titles and honours derived from 
her ancestors. Spite of her vain-glory, she was, neverthe- 
less, a fine old creature. She had been an independent 
courtier in the court of Queen Elizabeth, possessing a spirit 
as lofty and daring as old Bess herself. She personally re- 
sisted a most iniquitous award of her family property by 
King James, and suffered grievously on that account. She 
rebuilt her dismantled castles, in defiance of Cromwell ; and 
repelled with disdain the assumption of the minister of 
Charles II. " She patronised," says her historian, " the 
poets of her youth, and the distressed loyalists of her ma- 
turer age ; she enabled her aged servants to end their days 
in ease and independence ; and above all, she educated and 
portioned the illegitimate children of her first husband, the 
Earl of Dorset. Removing from castle to castle, she dif- 
fused plenty and happiness around her, by consuming on 
the spot the produce of her vast domains, in hospitality and 
charity. Equally remote from the undistinguishing profu- 
sion of ancient times and the parsimonious elegance of mo- 
dern habits, her house was a school for the young and a 
retreat for the aged ; an asylum for the persecuted ; a col- 
lege for the learned ; and a pattern for all." To this it 
should be added, that, during that age when such firmness 
was most meritorious, she withstood all the arts, persua- 
sions, and all but actual compulsion of her two husbands, 
to oblige her to change the course and injure the property 
of her descendants; and therefore, it must be confessed 



138 YISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

that she was a brave woman, and one whose like does not 
often appear. It is, however, her celebrated letter to Sir 
Joseph Williamson, the secretary of Charles II., who had 
written to name a candidate for her borough of Appleby, 
that has given her name a Spartan immortality : — 

" I have been bullied by an usurper ; I have been ne- 
glected by a court ; but I will not be dictated to by a subject 

— your man shan't stand. 

Anne, Dorset, Pembroke, 

and Montgomery." 

The history of the Shepherd Lord is one of the most sin- 
gular in the peerage. When his father, Lord John ClifTo.rd 

— the bloody or black-faced Clifford — fell at the battle of 
Towton, which overthrew the house of Lancaster, and 
placed Edward IV. on the throne, his mother was obliged 
to fly with him, for safety, into the wildest recesses of York- 
shire and Cumberland. She afterwards married Sir Launce- 
lot Threlkeld, of the latter county, who assisted to keep him 
concealed from the knowledge of the York family — to 
whom the Clifford blood was, for notorious reasons, most 
especially odious ; but to effect this, he was obliged to be 
brought up as a shepherd, and so lived for twenty-four 
years. On the ascension of Henry VII. to the throne, the 
attainder against his father was reversed, and he succeeded 
to his ancestral honours and estates. At this period, it ap- 
pears that he was as uneducated as his fellow shepherds ; 
but he was a man of strong natural understanding, and had, 
it would seem, learned much true wisdom in its simple abode 
up amongst the hills. 

Among - the shepherd-grooms no mate 
Had he — a child of strength and state ! 
Yet lacked not friends for solemn glee. 
And a cheerful company, 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 189 

That learned of him submissive ways, 

And comforted his private days. 

To his side the fallow-deer 

Came and rested without fear ; 

And both the undying fish that swim 

Through Bowscale Tarn did wait on him — 

The pair were servants of his eye, 

In their immortality ; 

They moved about in open sight, 

To and fro for his delight. 

He knew the rocks which angels haunt 

On the mountains visitant ; 

He hath kenned them taking wing ; 

And the caves where fairies sing 

He hath entered ; and been told, 

By voices how men lived of old, 

Among the heavens his eye can see 

Face of thing that is to be : 

And, if men report him right, 

He could whisper words of might. 

Wordsworth. 

These verses allude to the studies for which he became 
remarkable ; for he resorted to this Barden Tower, and put 
himself under the tuition of some of the monks of Bolton. 
With these he appears to have contracted a strong friend- 
ship, and to have passed a life of what must have been a 
very delightful prosecution of the popular studies of the time. 
They applied themselves to astronomy, and it seems equally 
certain, to astrology. In the archives of the Cliffords have 
been found manuscripts of this period, and supposed to be- 
long to the Shepherd, which make it more than probable 
that alchemy was another of the fascinating pursuits of Lord 
Henry and his monkish companions. Some of these verses 
conclude with the usual declaration that the writer could 
not disclose the grand secret. 

Hie wer accursyde that soo wolde dene. 
How schold yow have servans then, 



190 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

To tyll your lands, and dryffe your plughe? 

Yff ev'ry mane to ryches came, 

Then none for oth'r owght wolde dowghe. 

There is matter for a fine romance in the life of this lord : 
the stirring nature of the times when he was born ; the flight 
of his family ; his concealment ; his life on the mountains ; 
his restoration ; his secluded mode of existence and myste- 
rious labours ; and then his emerging, as he did, after he 
had so spent the whole of the reign of Henry VII. and the first 
years of Henry VIII., at the age of nearly sixty, as a principal 
commander of the victorious army of Flodden; showing that 
the military genius of the Cliffords merely slumbered be- 
neath the philosophic gown. There is something very pic- 
turesque in the description of his followers, in the old 
metrical history of Flodden Field. 

From Penigent to Pendle Hill, 
From Linton to Long Addingham, 
And all that Craven coasts did till — 
They with the lusty Clifford came ; 
All Staincliffe hundred went with him, 
With stripling strong from Wharledale, 
And all that Hauton hills did climb, 
With Longstroth eke and Litton Dale, 
Whose milk-fed fellows, fleshy bred, 
Well-browned, with sounding bows upbend ; 
All such as Horton F, lis had fed — 
On Clifford's banner did attend. 

Before leaving Barden Tower, we must just notice the sin- 
gular old chapel which bounds one corner of the court-yard. 
You enter at a door from the court, and find yourself in a 
dwelling-house ; another door is opened, and you find your- 
self in the loft of a very old chapel, which remains in the 
state in which it was centuries ago, except for the effects of 
time, and where service is still performed by the clergyman 
of Bolton. 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 191 

We now directed our course to Rylston; but hearing 
that the common way was circuitous, and being curious to 
pass along the very route of the White Doe, we determined 
to cross the moor, contrary to the earnest dissuasion of the 
villagers, who declared it was perfectly trackless, and that 
a stranger could not find his way over it. And sure enough 
we found it the most solitary and impracticable waste we 
ever traversed. The distance was six miles ; not a track 
nor a house to be seen, except a keeper's lodge, standing in 
the brown heathery wilderness about a mile from Barden, 
with a watch-tower annexed to it, whence he might look 
out far and wide for depredators on the moorgame. We 
had the precaution to take a young man with us as guide, 
and on we went, plunging up to the waist in the heather, 
and sinking in deep moss at every step ; now in danger of 
being swallowed up by a bog, and now put to our contri- 
vances by some black ravine. A weary way of it the poor 
Doe must have had every Sunday from Rylston to Bolton 
Priory ; and well, we thought, might the people deem it 
something supernatural. Our guide himself found it no 
very easy matter to steer his course aright, or to pursue it 
when he thought it was right. He directed his way by 
certain crags on the distant hill-tops, called the Lord's 
Stones : and, when we gained the highest elevation, whence 
we had immense prospect, we came to a track cut through 
the moorland for the Duke to ride along on his shooting 
excursions. He told us to follow that, and it would lead 
us to the Fell-gate just above Rylston. Here, therefore, 
we allowed him to return ; but we speedily repented the 
permission, for the track soon vanished, and before us lay 
only wild craggy moors with intervening bogs, which ex- 
tended wider and wider as we went. The moor-game, 
ever and anon, rose with loud cries and whirring wings ; 
the few sheep ran off as we made our appearance ; and we 



1 92 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

seemed only getting farther and farther into a desolate 
region — 

Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal feet had ne'er or rarely heen. 

Knowing, however, that there was nothing for it but push- 
ing on to the extremity of the waste, bring us whither it 
would, we hurried forward in spite of weariness and bewil- 
derment, and presently found ourselves on a savage ridge 
of crags, from which a wide prospect of green and cham- 
paign country burst upon us, and the village of Rylston 
itself lying at the foot of the steep descent before us. We 
hastened down as well as we could, and proceeded towards 
the churchyard, knowing that near it had stood Rylston 
Hall, the abode of the Nortons. Here we soon found that 
all vestiges of the old house were gone, and that a modern 
gentleman's house was built upon the site. The village 
lies on the green and cultivated plain, just that sort of 
country which has a most attractive aspect to a grazier, but 
which the poet gives but one glance at ; it has nothing pic- 
turesque in its appearance : a more common-place collec- 
tion of houses can scarcely be met with, though three or 
four of them are, no doubt, the dwellings of wealthy people. 
We found the tradition of the White Doe quite current still 
amongst the peasantry, who soon pointed out to us, on the 
moorland eminence whence we had descended, Norton 
Tower, still exactly answering the description by the histo- 
rian of Craven : — " Rylstone Fell yet exhibits a monument 
of the old warfare between the Nortons and Cliffords. On 
a point of very high ground, commanding an immense 
prospect, and protected by two deep ravines, are the remains 
of a square tower, expressly said by Dodsworth to have 
been built by Richard Norton. The walls are of strong 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 193 

grout-work, about four feet thick. It seems to have been 
three stories high. Breaches have been industriously made 
in all sides, almost to the ground, to render it untenable. 
The place is savagely wild, and admirably adapted to the 
site of a watch-tower." Here, no doubt, stout old Richard 
Norton used to assemble his retainers, to make their inroads 
into Barden Moor amongst the Cliffords' deer, in which he 
delighted, and for which he constructed, by help of natural 
crag, and bog, and ravine, that famous, and, to the Cliffords, 
most provoking pound, of which abundant traces yet ap- 
pear. Here too, as the poet has more than hinted, he used 
to come and make merry. 



High on a point of rugged ground, 
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell, 
Above the loftiest ridge, a mound 
Where foresters or shepherds dwell, 
An edifice of warlike frame 
Stands single, Norton Tower its name. 
It fronts all quarters, and looks around 
O'er path and road, and plain and dell, 
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream, 
Upon a prospect without bound. 

The summit of this bleak ascent, 
Though bleak, and bare, and seldom free, 
As Pendle-hill or Pennygent, 
From wind, or forest, or vaporous wet, 
Had often heard the sound of glee, 
When there the youthful Nortons met 
To practise games and archery. 
How proud and happy they ! The crowd 
Of lookers-on how pleased and proud ! 
And from the scorching noontide sun, 
From showers, or when the prize was won, 
They to the watch-tower did repair — 
17 



J94 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

Commodious pleasure-house ! And there 
Would mirth run round with generous fare ; 
And the stern old Lord of Rylstone Hall, 
He was the proudest of them all. 

White Doe. Canto V. 

If the village of Rylston has little in the aspect of the pre- 
sent or remaining of the past, to draw the feet of poetic 
wanderers to it — if Rylston Hall itself, the hearth and 
home of the stout Nortons, be gone — if all its gardens, 
walks, waters, and topiary-work have vanished like a 
dream, — yet there still stands that stern old tower, on those 
dark and frowning fells, which will rear their black and 
storm-shattered heads till the shock which commingles earth 
and heaven. There they stretch along the grim edge of 
that region of moorland, glen and forest, river and ruin, 
over which have passed the consecrating influences of 
heroic spirits crushed by malignant destinies, of human 
hearts and hearths laid waste and desolate for ever ; and 
over which, once more, the poet has thrown a new and in- 
destructible enchantment. 

In this beautiful poem, " The White Doe of Rylston," 
Wordsworth has shown how far he was capable of handling 
a romantic and historic subject ; and nothing is more obvi- 
ous than that, if he had chosen to select such subjects, 
rather than undeviatingly attempting to develope his own 
views of the real nature and compass of the province of 
poetry, he might much earlier have stepped into that popu- 
larity which he has now attained, and avoided the long 
reign of ridicule and abuse under which he lived. To say 
nothing of Peter Bell, the Wagoner, Betty Foy, and that class 
of subjects — a class, and so treated, that I am fi*ee to confess 
to be fair game for critics that love a little fun ; — it is quite 
as true as it was ten years ago, that neither the simple 
pathos of his " Lyrical Ballads/' nor the grave dignity and 
philosophy of his " Excursion," ever could or ever can be 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. I95 

truly appreciated by the common run of readers. They 
can have no charms for those who delight in the literary 
dram-drinking of fashionable novels. You might just as 
well have expected a Persian to love Spartan broth ; just 
as well expect a London epicure, with his gullet on fire 
with curry and cayenne, to relish the girdle-cake and milk 
of the shepherd's hut. In this poem he has enlisted more 
of those stirring elements of historical action and national 
change, with all their sequences of family disruptions and 
disastrous overthrows, which, for the habitual story-monger, 
may become a tolerable substitute for his ordinary stimulus 
of tragic recital and piquant personalities ; and which the 
reader, of genuine passion and healthful sensibilities, may 
yet combine with gentler causes and their emotions into a 
whole of living and exalting influences. He has beautifully 
woven into his scheme every history or tradition floating 
about the scene of action with which our nature sympa- 
thises. The fate of the Boy of Egremont, the fortunes of 
the Shepherd Lord, blend like soft and sunset hues into the 
great picture of " The Rising in the North," of which 
the outline is gloriously sketched in the ancient ballad of 
that name ; the imposing, but ill-organized and ill-main- 
tained attempt to put down in England the growing power 
of Protestantism, and to restore the old religion. Here is 
material enough to quicken the pulse of every true Briton ; 
but we soon find the poet, amid the splendour of historic 
matter, fixing his eye upon a few characters, towards whom 
he irresistibly draws our hearts after him ; resting finally 
on that high-spirited old gentleman, Maister Richard Nor- 
ton, and his family, — his nine sons and single daughter. 
In working out the characters and fate of these, he finds 
ample employment for that philosophic taste, and that de- ' 
light in tracing the movements of our inner nature ; the 
power of our affections ; the contention between our prin- 
ciples and our interests ; the development of that highest pitch 



196 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

of mortal grandeur, the stern subjection of every hope, feel- 
ing and ambition, to the sole and sovereign sense of duty 
shed into the heart of man by the law of Christianity. We, 
accordingly, behold with admiration the brave Richard Nor- 
ton, who had spent his days amid his sons and vassals in the 
festivities of the hall, the excitements of the chase, and of 
Border war, now coming forward in his silver hairs to cast 
all the fortunes of his house on a single and hazardous die. 
We behold with equal admiration the unhesitating devotion 
of his eight sons, and their manly beauty, as they surround 
him, as he takes in his hand the banner wrought by the fair 
fingers of his only daughter — that banner which displayed 

The Cross, 
And the five wounds our Lord did bear. 

Old Ballad. 

The group, at this moment, would form a noble picture. 

They mustered their host at Wetherby — 
Full sixteen thousand, fair to see, 
The choicest warriors of the North ! 
But none, for beauty and for worth, 
Like those eight sons, embosoming' 
Determined thoughts ; who, in a ring, 
Each with a lance erect and tall, 
A falchion, and a buckler small, 
Stood by their sire on Clifford Moor, 
To guard the standard which he bore. 
With feet that firmly pressed the ground 
They stood, and girt their father round ; 
Such was his choice — no steed will he 
Henceforth bestride ; — ■ triumphantly 
He stood upon the grassy sod, 
Trusting himself to the earth, and God. 
There, sight to embolden and inspire ! 
Proud was the field of Sons and Sire ; 
Of him the most ; and sooth to say, 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 197 

No shape of man in all the array 

So graced the sunshine of that day. 

The monumental pomp of age 

Was with this goodly personage ; 

A stature undepressed in size, 

Unbent, which rather seemed to rise, 

In open victory o'er the weight 

Of seventy years, to higher height; 

Magnific limbs of withered state ; 

A face to fear and venerate ; 

Eyes dark and strong ; and on his head 

Bright locks of silver hair, thick spread ; 

With a brown morion, half concealed, 

Light as a hunter's of the field. 

And thus, with girdle round his waist, 

Whereon the banner-staff might rest 

At need, he stood, advancing high 

The glittering, floating pageantry. 

Nothing, we think, for a moment, can be more beautiful 
and admirable ; but the poet soon shows us a character and 
a devotion far higher, in Francis Norton, the eldest son, 
who singly opposes and attempts to dissuade his father and 
brothers from this enterprise ; and is repulsed as a coward 
and a renegade by the indignant father and the silently 
contemptuous sons. The wise spirit and unflinching forti- 
tude of this English Abdiel impress us with a respect and 
veneration that are not easy to be heightened ; and yet 
they are heightened by finding Francis, instead of satisfying 
himself with having striven to dissuade — and that vainly 
— and quietly sitting down to wait the result, or feeling 
resentful of the rude repulse and wrongful imputations 
received from them, now showing that the devotion and 
nobility of his nature are of a far loftier stamp. He follows 
them unarmed, and, unmindful of their taunts or their sus- 
picions, watches with patient endurance for that moment of 
reversed fortune which he is sure will come, and when he 
hopes to render assistance that may be accepted and availa- 

17* 



198 VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 

ble. That moment of reverse soon arrives ; but the indig- 
nant father only heaps fresh and more trying scorn on his 
faithful son; and it is only when the vengeance of the 
offended law dooms the father and the sons in arms to 
perish in their blood, that the sleepless and affectionate 
attentions of Francis, to sooth, and serve, and comfort them, 
break down the barrier of thick prejudice from the old man's 
heart, and he sees and acknowledges the wisdom and mag- 
nanimity of his devoted son. Here one scarcely knows 
whether most to admire, the frank confession of the old 
warrior and the confidence he immediately places in Fran- 
cis, or the filial piety with which, to gratify the mind of his 
dying father, Francis undertakes a task, hopeless, and fatal 
to himself. The following out of these great human im- 
pulses ; the portraiture of this sublime character of Francis 
Norton, than which none in history or fiction is greater ; 
and, besides this, the beautiful sketch of his sister, equally 
devoted, equally strong in principle, though not so compre- 
hensive and commanding in intellect as her brother ; she 

Whose duty was to stand and wait ; 

In resignation to abide 

The shock, and finally secure 

O'er pain and grief, a triumph sure : — ■ 

these, altogether, were elements of heart and spirit, of eha- • 
racter and action, in which the soul of the philosophical 
poet, who has sought to link fast to our theory of metaphy- 
sics the system of the affections, was sure to revel ; although 
on one occasion we saw him, strangely enough, as the 
author of " Peter Bell," and of this poem, lay down a 
volume of a contemporary, full of the same elements, and 
actually of a most kindred nature, saying that he could not 
read of " sin and sorrow, finding enough of them in the 
world about him." Notwithstanding this paradoxical 



VISIT TO BOLTON PRIORY. 199 

assertion, he has here, in his own case, cast over the sor- 
rows of the Nortons a profound sympathy, and a golden 
glory over the Scenery of the White Doe of Rylston ; over 
Bolton Priory ; the Vale of Wharf; over Barden Tower 
and Norton Tower, on the grim Rylston Fells — which, as 
it drew us thither, shall draw thither also, from generation 
to generation, other pilgrims as devoted to the charms of 
nature, of poetry, of history and tradition, as ourselves. 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

A visit to Hampton Court Palace, is one of the bravest 
pleasures that a party of happy friends can promise them- 
selves. Especially is it calculated to charm the thousands 
of pleasure-seekers from the dense and dusty vastness of 
London. It lies in a rich country ; on the banks of the 
Thames, — there unmuddled by commerce, but flowing 
free and pure, amid the greenest meadows, scattered villas, 
and trees overhanging its clear waters, and adding to its 
glad aspect the richness of their beauty. From the swell- 
ing hills of Richmond, Esher, and St. George, the palace 
is seen standing aloft amid a wide sea of woodland foliage, 
like a little town in its extent. Its ample and delightful 
gardens, bounded by the splendid masses of its lime-tree 
avenues ; its ancient courts, with all their historic recollec- 
tions ; its accumulated paintings, the Cartoons of Raphael 
themselves being part of them — all are thrown open to the 
leisurely and perfect enjoyment of the public. There is no 
royal palace in England, excepting Windsor, which, after 
all, is to be compared to it, and this is, as it should be, 
given up to the use and refreshment of the people. It is 
the first step towards the national appropriation of public 
property. It is long since it was said, " The king has got 
his own again," and it is now fitting that the people should 
have their own again. Of all the palaces, the towers, the 
abbeys, and cathedrals, which have been raised with the 
wealth and ostensibly for the benefit of the people, none 
till lately have been freely open to the footsteps of the mul- 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 201 

titude. They have been jealously retained for the enjoy- 
ment of an exclusive few, or have been made engines to 
extort still further payment from those out of whose pockets 
they were raised. But the tolls at the door of St. Paul's 
and the Tower have been relaxed ; park after park in the 
metropolis has been thrown open ; and now this charming 
old palace of Hampton Court has been made the daily re- 
sort of any, and of all, of the English people who choose to 
tread the pavements, and disport themselves in the gardens, 
and gaze on the works of art, which for ages were wont 
only to be accessible to the royal, the aristocratic, and the 
ecclesiastical dignitary and their retainers. 

These are visible and unequivocal evidences of the growth 
of general intelligence, and of that popular influence and 
benefit which must spring out of it. Courts are no longer 
despotic because the people is no longer ignorant. The 
crown has resigned its lands into the hands of the people, 
saying, give us what you deem fitting for the just mainte- 
nance of the regal dignity, — and the crown has had no cause 
to regret this surrender ; while, on the other hand, it has 
given the people a right to use a bolder tone regarding those 
which were the royal lands and houses, woods and forests. 
The people can now say with an air of just authority, we 
demand to be admitted to the use and fruition of that for 
which we have given a noble equivalent. It is with this 
consciousness that we now walk about the courts, the gar- 
dens, the galleries, and painted chambers of Hampton Court ; 
and there can be perhaps no instance cited where public 
property is more completely enjoyed by all classes of the 
community. The royal race have had their will of it from 
the days in which the last great English Cardinal built it, 
and presented it, as a most magnificent gift, to Harry VIII. 
his master, till they abandoned it as an abode, for others 
which more engaged their fancies. A considerable portion 
of it has since, and still is, given as residences to branches 



202 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

of the aristocracy, and lo ! at length the very people have 
entered into possession of the rest. 

And now, the great question is, how do they enjoy it ? — 
How do they use their advantage ! Do they feel the great 
delight of having got their own again ? Do they act like 
rational masters and proprietors on their own estates, com- 
mitting no injury and seeing none committed ? A few facts 
will sufficiently answer these questions. Steam has in a 
great measure brought this delightful old palace into the 
very suburbs of London ; and thrown it open to the thou- 
sands of its citizens. The Southampton railway, passing 
within a short distance of it, has enabled almost all that 
please to be down at it in about an hour, and has given them 
a pleasant excursion at a cheap rate, through a delightful 
country, besides the luxury of fair gardens, on the banks of 
the Thames, and the contemplation of rich paintings when 
they get there. Have they availed themselves of these pri- 
vileges ? The palace has only been fairly thrown open this 
summer, and for some time the fact was but very little 
known — yet through spring and summer the resort thither 
has been constantly increasing ; the average number of 
visiters on Sunday or Monday is now two thousand five 
hundred, and the amount of them for the month of August 
was thirty-two thousand ? 

And how have these swarms of Londoners of all classes 
behaved ? With the exception of some scratches made on 
the panels of the grand staircase, for the discovery of the 
perpetrator of which an ominous placard is pasted on the 
door-post as you enter, offering five pounds reward, but of 
which slight injury no one can tell the date — the police, 
who are always on the spot, never having witnessed the 
doings of it since they were stationed there — I cannot learn 
that the slightest exhibition of what has been considered 
the English love of demolition, has been made. Never 
have I seen, at all times that I have been there, a more 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 203 

orderly or more well-pleased throng of people. I happened 
accidentally to be there on Whit-Monday, when, besides 
the railway, upwards of a dozen spring-vans, gaily adorned 
with ribbons, and blue and red hangings, had brought there 
their loads of servants and artisans, all with their sweet- 
hearts, and in fine spirits for a day's country frolic ; and not 
less than two thousand people were wandering through the 
house and gardens, yet nothing could be more decorous 
than their behaviour. Never, indeed, did I behold a scene 
which was more beautiful in my eyes, or which more 
sensibly affected me. Here were thousands of those whose 
fathers would have far preferred the brutal amusement of 
the bull-baiting or the cock-pit ; who have made holiday 
at the boxing-ring, or in guzzling beer in the lowest dens 
of debauch, — here were they, scattered in companies, and 
family groups ; fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, old 
people and children of all ages, strolling through the airy 
gardens, admiring the flowers, or resting on the benches, or 
watching swarming shoals of gold and silver fish in the 
basin of the central fountain, and feeding them with crumbs 
of bun amid shouts of childish delight. Here were these 
poor people, set free from the fret and fume, the dust and 
sweat, and mental and bodily wear and tear of their city 
trades and domestic cares, well dressed, amongst their more 
wealthy neighbours, clean, and jocund from the sense of 
freedom and social affection, treading walks laid down only 
for royal feet, listening to the lapse of waters intended only 
for the ears of greatness and high-born beauty, though all 
constructed by the money of their forefathers ; and here 
were they enjoying all these more than king or cardinal 
ever could do, beneath a sunny sky, that seemed to smile 
upon them as if itself rejoiced at the sight of so much hap- 
piness. There too, through the open windows, you saw 
the passing crowds of heads of men and women wandering 
through the rooms intent on the works of Raphael, Titian, 



204 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

Correggio, Lely, Vandyke, Kneller, Rembrandt, Rubens, 
Ricci, Giulio Romano, and many another master of the sub- 
lime and beautiful ; pausing to behold forms of power, and 
grace, and loveliness, and to mark many a face of man or 
woman whose names are so bruited in our annals that even 
the most ignorant must have heard something of them. 
Here surely was significant indication of a change in the 
popular mind in the course of one generation, which must 
furnish an answer to those who ask what has education 
done for the masses, and most pregnant with matter of 
buoyant augury for the future. Those who do not see in 
such a spectacle that the march of intellect, and the walk- 
ing abroad of the schoolmaster, are something more than 
things to furnish a joke or a witticism, and blind indeed to 
the signs of the times, and to the certainty that the speed 
of sound knowledge amongst the people will yet make this 
nation more deserving of the epithet of a nation of princes, 
than ever Rome deserved from the Parthian ambassador. 
I could not help asking myself, as my eye wandered amid 
the throng, how much more happiness was now enjoyed in 
any one day on that ground, than had been enjoyed in a 
twelvemonth when it was Only the resort of kings and 
nobles, and the scene of most costly masks and banquets. 
Nothing more than the sight of that happiness was needed, 
to prove the rationalty of throwing open such places to 
diffuse amongst the million, at once the truest pleasure and 
the most refining influences. 

To the visiters of cultivated taste and historic knowledge, 
Hampton Court abounds with subjects of reflective interest 
of the highest order. It is true, that, compared with some 
of our palaces, it can lay no claims to antiquity ; but from 
the days of Henry VIII. to those of George III., there are 
few of them that have witnessed more singular or momen- 
tous events. 

Overbearing despot as Wolsey was, there is something 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 205 

magnificent in the sweep of his ambition, and irresistibly- 
interesting in the greatness of his fall. He was the last of 
those haughty prelates in the good old Catholic times, rose 
up from the dust of insignificance into the most lordly and 
overgrown magnificence ; outdoing monarchs in the number 
of their servants, and in the pomp of their state. Equalling 
the great Cardinals who have figured on the continent, 
Ximenes, Richelieu, Mazarine, and De Retz, in political 
ability and personal ambition, he exceeded all in the wealth 
which he unhesitatingly seized, and the princely splendour 
in which he lived. He fell only just before, and almost 
with, the Catholic religion itself in this country, and has 
therefore left a more marked place in men's memories. 
There could be none come after him of a like kind. Those 
swelling and mighty archprelates, filling the public ways 
with their enormous travelling processions, and ruling both 
as spiritual and temporal lords equally church and state, at 
once the primates and the prime ministers of the realm, 
could no more exist. Wolsey seemed to have gathered 
into himself all the powers and splendours of that extra- 
ordinary class of men, to have raised them to the highest 
pitch, to the uttermost blaze of exhibition, and to have 
quenched them in his fall. Never was such a rise, such a 
progress ; such a sudden, sheer, and ruinous descent ! It 
may be said that the Romish hierarchy fell with him, for 
nothing is more clear than that by first leading Henry to 
question the propriety of his marriage with Catherine of 
Arragon, in order to make way for a French alliance, 
which then appeared to him the surer way to the popedom, 
he opened the path of that royal license which led Henry 
into so much matrimonial villany and blood, and placed on 
the throne his enemy, and the enemy of popery, Anne 
Boleyn. He involved his irascible monarch in those terms 
with the Pope, which led him to kick down his power in 
this kingdom ; and moreover, he was the first to lead the 

18 



206 VISIT T0 HAMPTON COURT. 

way to the suppression of the monasteries, by showing to 
Henry their enormous wealth and their profligate state, that 
he might obtain from him an order for the extinction of the 
worst, and appropriation of their revenues to the building 
and endowing of his colleges. 

When we enter, therefore, the gates of Hampton Court, 
and are struck with the magnificent extent of the erection, 
which at that time not only, according to Rapin, " was a 
stately palace, and outshined all the king's houses," but 
was one of the most splendid structures in Europe, we 
cannot help figuring to ourselves the proud Cardinal sur- 
veying its progress, and musing over the wonders of that 
career which had brought him, if not from the humble 
estate of the son of a butcher, yet from an origin of no 
great condition, or it could not have remained dubious to 
this period — the wealthiest man in Europe, the most potent 
in political influence, and the ardent aspirant to the pope- 
dom itself. It would be curious to run over the multitude 
of offices and dignities, civil and ecclesiastical, which this 
able adventurer had grasped in a daring and rapid succes- 
sion. First, in 1504, chaplain to King Henry VII., with 
dispensation to hold three livings ; then royal almoner ; 
immediately afterwards, in 150S, Dean of Lincoln ; in the 
next year, Prebendary of Stowe Magna ; in the autumn of 
the same year, 1509, made almoner to Henry VIII., with a 
grant of all goods and chattels of felones de se, and all 
coroners' deodands, which, although expressly reserving 
the whole proceeds of the offices to charitable purposes, no 
doubt were found very profitable in such hands. Next 
came the appointment of reporter of the proceedings in the 
Star Chamber, with acknowledged abundance of bribes for 
his good services with the king, in whose favour he already 
stood high. 

In January, 1510, he received a formal grant of the par- 
sonage and tenements of St. Bride's, with various gardens 



■VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 207 

and other property, given him some time before ; in Fe- 
bruary following he was appointed Canon of Windsor ; in 
the same year he received the rich rectory of Turnington 
in the diocese of Exeter ; and was made a privy councillor. 
Early in 1511 he was appointed Registrar of the order of 
the Garter; in February, 1512, Dean of York; soon after, 
Prebend of Bngthorpe ; in October, Dean of St. Stephen's, 
Westminster, now the House of Commons. In November 
of that year he was specially appointed to superintend the 
king's household and the preparation of the army for the 
invasion of France ; and in September of the following year 
he was made Bishop of Tournay in that kingdom. On the 
first of January, 1514, he became Bishop of Lincoln : soon 
after he was elected Chancellor of the University of Cam- 
bridge, but declined the office ; in June of that year the 
king granted him half the advowson, or next reversion, of 
Bermondsey Abbey, a valuable gift ; and before the year 
was out, he was actually on the throne of the Archbishopric 
of York. The next year had not passed over before he re- 
ceived from Rome a cardinal's hat, and the appointment of 
Legate, and from his king the seals of the office of Lord 
High Chancellor of England. While honours and emolu- 
ments thus showered upon him, Wolsey did not hesitate to 
receive gifts and pensions from foreign potentates. From 
the King of Spain, about this time, he accepted a pension 
of 3000 livres per annum, and another of 200 ducats from 
the Duke of Milan. Then came a bull from the Pope, 
granting authority of visiting the monasteries, and confer- 
ring on him the tenth of all the revenues of the clergy. In 
151S the king empowered him to confer letters patent of 
denizen under the great seal ; and then to make out conges 
d'elire, royal assents, and restitutions of temporalities of ec- 
clesiastical dignities, from archbishops down to the lowest 
religions establishments ; as well as to take the homages 
and fealty of all persons which might be due to the crown 



208 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

for such temporalities — sources of most extraordinary in- 
fluence and emolument. Next was added the Bishopric of 
Bath and Wells, and the rich Abbey of St. Albans ; then 
the administration of the sees of Worcester and Hereford 
was conferred on him by the Pope. In October of that 
year he received the grant of the office of Bailiff of the lord- 
ship of Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, and park-keeper of 
Brantingisley. In 1521 the Pope sent him a bull empower- 
ing him to make fifty knights, fifty counts palatine, forty 
apostolic notaries — whose privileges were equal to those 
made by the Pope himself, namely, to legitimate bastards 
■ — and confer degrees in arts, law, medicine, and divinity, 
and also to grant all sorts of dispensations. This was fol- 
lowed by another bull, empowering him to check and put 
down the new Protestant heresies. This year he was sent 
as ambassador to the king of France and the Emperor 
Charles V., and he received a grant of 9000 crowns of pen- 
sion from the emperor, besides 2500 in lieu of a former 
grant of revenue out of the bishopric of Badajoz. 

In 1522 he made himself master of the see of Durham 
— so rich that his predecessor had died that year worth 
100,000/. In 1524 he received a new bull, confirming his 
power to visit and suppress disorderly monasteries ; and 
in 1529, the grant of the see of Winchester. This was his 
last favour, and came only about a year before his death. 
When we add to all this, various grants of lands and manors 
which have not been particularized, and the many costly 
gifts and bribes received from both crowned heads and 
numberless private persons to propitiate his favour in his 
days of palmy fortune, we sum up an account of honour, 
preferment, and emolument, which had been growing, with 
scarcely any intermission, through five-and-twenty years. 
Well might it be said, that the revenues in his command 
much exceeded the revenues of the king, or indeed of any 
crowned head in Europe. He exercised the powers, and 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 209 

was virtually Pope in England. The king seemed to de- 
light in showering upon him the most unbounded afflu- 
ence, and in seeing him expend the princely revenues de- 
rived from strictly national sources, on colleges and palaces, 
to perpetuate the glory of his own name. This was the 
most magnificent portion of the Cardinal's ambition. He 
was ever emulous to build up his fame with the advance- 
ment of learning. He was the steady friend of Erasmus, 
and the most learned men of the age. He was the pro- 
moter of what was called the " new learnin g," the study of 
Greek ; he suggested the establishment of the College of 
Physicians ; at his instigation Henry invited both Titian 
and Raphael into England ; he established seven lectures at 
Oxford ; commenced a college at Ipswich, and founded, 
and nearly completed that of Christ Church Oxford, before 
his fall. He appeared as enthusiastic and as superb in his 
love of building, as he did in his ambition of power. Wher- 
ever he was, he was busily employed in building, and his 
structures are everywhere remarkable for their superiority 
to the general style of the age. The greater part of them 
are of brick-work, but that is of the most admirable and 
compact kind ; and many of his fabrics still standing, look 
comparatively new, and likely to endure yet for ages. Be- 
sides Hampton Court, he restored and enlarged his archi- 
episcopal house in York Place ; during his holding the see 
of Durham he built one-third of the bridge over the Tyne ; 
he built considerably at Cheshunt, and at More in Hert- 
fordshire, at the latter place inclosing with a Avail several 
hundred acres of additional park ; and at his house at 
Battersea. Esher Place, then the property of the see of 
Winchester, fell only into his hands a short time before his 
disgrace, nevertheless, he is said to have repaired it, and 
built a new gate-house, which is yet standing, though the 
house itself, originally built by Bishop Waynnete, has been 
pulled down some years.. 

IS* 



210 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

At Apscourt, near Moulsey in Surrey, there is the re- 
mains of a house said to have been built by him, and to 
derive its name from A. P. S., the sign-letters of Archiepis- 
copus : near Walton also, the old mansion of Ashley Park 
is attributed to him ; and even in his last days of trouble 
and disgrace, on his melancholy journey to York, on arriving 
at Cawood Castle, a palace of the archbishopric, about seven 
miles from that city, where it was necessary to take up his 
abode, and finding it much out of repair, he set out about 
immediately to restore it. He did it in his usual admirable 
manner ; added new buildings to it on a noble scale, and 
poor as he then comparatively was, kept upwards of three 
hundred workmen daily employed upon it. 

Such was Wolsey when he built the Palace of Hampton 
Court. The actual ruler of this country, both in church and 
state, by the unlimited favour of his sovereign, and the cour- 
tesy of the Pope ; flattered and sought by power and beauty 
at home, and by the crowned heads of all Europe ; hated, 
yet feared by the courtiers ; haughty, arbitrary and vindic- 
tive ; possessed of revenues to which the incomes of the 
greatest nobles were poor, he lived in a splendour and state 
such as became only a reigning prince, and expressed his 
swelling vanity in the well known words — Ego et Rex 
metis. It was only at Hampton Court that his vast train of 
servants and attendants, with the nobility and ambassadors 
who flocked about him, could be fully entertained. These, 
as we learn from his gentleman-usher, Cavendish, were little 
short of a thousand persons ; for there were upon his " cheine 
roll" eight hundred persons belonging to his household, in- 
dependent of suitors, who were all entertained in the hall. 
In this hall he had daily spread three tables. At the head 
of the first presided a priest, as steward ; at that of the 
second a knight, as treasurer; and at the third his comptroller, 
who was an esquire. Besides these, there were always a 
doctor, a confessor, two almoners, three marshals, three 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 211 

ushers of the hall, and grooms. The furnishing of these 
tables required a proportionate kitchen : and here were two 
clerks, a comptroller, and surveyor of the dressers ; a clerk 
of the spicery ; two cooks, with labourers and children for 
assistants ; turnspits a dozen ; four scullery-men ; two yeo- 
men of the pastry, and two paste-layers. In his own kitchen 
was his master-cook, daily dressed in velvet or satin, and 
wearing a gold chain. Under him were two other cooks 
and their six labourers ; in the larder a yeoman and groom ; 
in the scullery a yeoman and two grooms ; in the ewry two 
yeomen and two grooms ; in the buttery the same ; in the 
cellar three yeomen and three pages ; in the chandlery and the 
wafery, each two yeomen ; in the wardrobe the master of 
the wardrobe and twenty assistants ; in the laundry, yeoman, 
groom, thirteen pages, two yeomen-purveyors and groom- 
purveyor ; in the bake-house, two yeomen and two grooms ; 
in the wood-yard, one yeoman and groom ; in the barn, a 
yeoman ; at the gate, two yeomen and two grooms ; a yeo- 
man of his barge ; the master of his horse ; a clerk and 
groom of the stables ; the farrier ; the yeoman of the 
stirrup ; a maltlour and sixteen grooms, each keeping four 
horses. 

There were the dean and sub-dean of his chapel ; the 
repeater of his choir ; the gospeler, the epistler, or the sing- 
ing priest ; the master of the singers, with his men and 
children. In the vestry were a yeoman and two grooms. 
In the procession were commonly seen forty priests, all in 
rich copes and other vestments of white satin, or scarlet, or 
crimson. The altar was covered with massy plate, and 
blazed with jewels and precious stones. But if such were 
his general establishment, not less was the array of those 
who attended on his person. In his privy chamber he had 
his chief chamberlain, vice-chamberlain, and two gentlemen- 
ushers. Six gentlemen-waiters and twelve yeomen ; and at 
their head nine or ten lords to attend on him, each with 



212 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

their two or three servants, and some more, to wait on them, 
the Earl of Derby having five. Three gentlemen cup- 
bearers, gentlemen-carvers, and servers to the amount of 
forty in the great and the privy-chamber; six gentlemen- 
ushers and eight grooms. Attending on his table were 
twelve doctors and chaplains, clerk of the closet, two clerks 
of the signet, four counsellors learned in the law,, and two 
secretaries. 

He had his riding-clerk ; clerk of the crown; clerk of the 
hamper and chaffer ; clerk of the cheque for the chaplains ; 
clerk for the yeoman of the chamber ; and " fourteen foot- 
men garnished with richrunning-coates, whensoever he had 
any journey ;" besides these, a herald-at-arms, serjeant-at- 
arms, a physician, an apothecary, four minstrels, a keeper 
of the tents, an armourer ; an instructor of his wards in 
chancery ; " an instructor of his wardrop of roabes ;" a 
keeper of his chamber ; a surveyor of York, and clerk of 
the green cloth. 

" All these were daily attending, downelying and uprising. 
And, at need, he had eight continual boords for the cham- 
berlaynes and gentlemen-officers, having a mease of young 
lordes, and another of gentlemen ; besides these, there never 
was a gentleman or officer, or other worthy person, but he 
kept some two, some three persons to wait on them." 

This was his state at home. When he prepared to attend 
term at Westminster Hall, he summoned his retinue in his 
privy chamber, where he was ready appareled in his car- 
dinal's robes ; his upper vesture entirely of red, scarlet, or 
fine crimson taffeta, or crimson satin ingrained ; his pillion 
scarlet, with a sable tippet about his neck. He had in his 
hand an orange, which, having the inside taken out, was 
refilled with a sponge and aromatic vinegar, lest in the 
crowd he might imbibe any pestilence. Before him were 
carried the great seal of England, and the cardinal's hat, by 
some " lord or gentleman, right solemnly." On entering 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 213 

his presence chamber his two great crosses were borne be- 
fore him, and the gentlemen-ushers cried, " On, masters, on, 
and make room for my lord." On descending to the hall 
of his palace, he was preceded J>y additional officers, a ser- 
jeant-at-arms with a great silver mace, and two gentlemen 
bearing great plates of silver. Arriving at his gate, he 
mounted his mule, trapped all in crimson velvet, with a 
saddle of the same, and thus he proceeded to Westminster — 

Poleaxe and pillar borne before his face. — Moile. 

his cross-bearers, and pillar-bearers all upon great horses, 
and in fine scarlet, with a train of gentry, footmen with 
battleaxes, etc. 

Regularly on Sundays, when Henry held his court at 
Greenwich, which was often, the great lord cardinal made 
thither his progress to visit him. He had then his magni- 
ficent state barge, with troops of yeomen standing upon the 
sails, and crowds of gentlemen within and without. He 
disembarked to avoid the fall at London Bridge, and there 
his mule and cavalcade awaited him, to conduct him from 
the Three-Cranes of Billingsgate, where he again went on 
board ; and the same solemn state was observed on his re- 
turn. 

When he celebrated mass before the royal family, the 
most distinguished noblemen held the basin for him to wash 
his hands : nay, when he performed mass at St. Paul's be- 
fore Henry and Charles V. on his visit to this country, two 
barons gave him water before mass ; two earls after the 
gospel ; and at the last lavatory this office was performed 
by two dukes. The very Spaniards themselves who ac- 
companied the emperor, are said to have been offended by 
his unparalleled assumption of dignity. 

The whole establishment and style of life of Wolsey, how- 
ever, more resemble the gorgeous romance of an Arabian 



214 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

tale than anything which ever existed in the sober realm of 
England. His friend and servant Cavendish relates scenes 
of gaiety and revelry enacted within these very walls, which 
it is sorrowful not to be able to give at length here. " The 
cardinal's house," he observes, " was resorted to like a king's 
house, by noblemen and gentlemen, and such pleasures 
were here devised for the king's delight as could be invented 
or imagined. Banquets set with masquers and mummers, 
in such costly manner, that it was glorious to behold. There 
wanted no damsels meet to dance with the masquers, or to 
garnish the place for the time with variety of other pastimes. 
Then there were divers kinds of music, and many choice 
men and women singers appointed to sing, who had excel- 
lent voices. I have seen the king come suddenly thither in 
a masque, with a dozen masquers, all in garments like shep- 
herds, made of fine cloth of gold and silver wire, and six 
torch- bearers, besides their drummers, and others attending 
on them with vizards, and clothed all in satin : and before 
his entering in the hall, you shall understand that he came 
by water to the water-gate without any noise, where were 
laid divers chambers and guns charged with shot, and at his 
landing they were discharged, which made such a rattling 
noise in the air, that it was like thunder. It made all the no- 
blemen, gentlemen, and ladies to muse what it should mean, 
coming so suddenly, they sitting quietly at a banquet. In 
short you shall understand, that the tables were set in the 
Chamber of Presence around, and my lord cardinal sitting 
under his cloth of state, and there having all his service 
alone ; and then there were set a lady and a nobleman, a 
gentleman and a gentlewoman, throughout all the tables in 
the chamber on the one side, which were made all joining, 
as if it were but one table. All which'was done by my Lord 
Sands, then lord-chamberlain to the king, and by Sir Henry 
Guilford, then comptroller of the king's house. 
" Then immediately after this great shot of guns, the 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 215 

Cardinal desired the Lord Chamberlain to see what it did 
mean, as though he knew nothing of the matter. They 
then looked out of the window into the Thames, and re- 
turning again told him, that they thought they were noble- 
men and strangers arrived at the bridge, and coming as 
ambassadors from some foreign prince ; with that said the 
Cardinal, ' I desire you, because you can speak French, to 
take the pains to go into the hall, there to receive them into 
the chamber, where they shall see us, and all these noble 
personages, being merry at our banquet, desiring them to 
sit down with us, and take part of our fare.' " 

So they are introduced, salute severally the Cardinal, de- 
clare the cause of their coming to be the rumour of such a 
constellation of beauty there that night ; they beg to have 
a game at mum-chance with the ladies, which is accorded ; 
and the Cardinal sends a message to them to the purport, 
that he believes there is amongst them a noble person who 
deserves the seat of honour at the feast more than himself, 
and begs that he will take it. They reply there is such a 
person, who if his grace can point him out, is willing to 
take his place most willingly. Wolsey pitches on his man, 
which turns out to be the wrong one : at which Bluff Harry 
pulls down his masque, and is very merry at the mistake. 
He goes and puts on a fresh and splendid dress, as do all 
his followers; a new banquet is laid, and they feast and 
dance till daylight. 

This, it will be seen, is the masque given by Shakspeare 
in Henry VIII., but as occurring at York House, and with 
some difference of circumstance. A brief extract, from an 
entertainment given to the French ambassadors, will serve 
to show more completely the sort of scenes passing here in 
the palmy days of Wolsey. The king commanding the 
cardinal to entertain these gentlemen, orders were sent out 
to all of the carriers, purveyors, and other persons to pre- 
pare. The cooks wrought both day and night in many 



216 VISIT TO HAMPTON COUET. 

curious devices, when was no lack of gold, silver, or any 
costly thing. The yeomen and grooms of his "wardrobes 
were busied in hanging the chambers with costly hangings, 
and furnishing the same with beds of silk, and other furni- 
ture of the same in every degree. . . . Then wrought joiners, 
carpenters, painters, and all other artificers needful, that 
there was nothing wanting to adorn this noble feast. There 
was carriage and re-carriage of plate, stuff, and other rich 
implements, so that there was nothing lacking that could 
be desired or imagined for that purpose. They were also 
provided two hundred and eighty beds, and all manner of 
furniture to them. 

The Frenchmen were ready before their time, so they 
were taken to Hanworth, a park of the king's about three 
miles from Hampton, to hunt till night ; when they were 
conducted to the palace, and all taken to their several 
chambers, where they found good fires, and stores of wine 
to entertain them till supper-time. They supped in the 
Great Waiting Chamber and Chamber of Presence, which 
were hung with rich arras, and furnished with tall yeomen 
and goodly gentlemen, to serve. The tables were set round 
the chambers, banquetwise, covered. In the Waiting 
Chamber was a cupboard garnished with white plate ; and 
four great plates were set with great lights, to give the 
more brilliancy, and a great fire of wood and coals. In the 
midst of the Chamber of Presence was placed the high 
table beneath the cloth of state, with six desks of plate gar- 
nished all over with fine gold. The cupboard was barred 
about that no man could come very near it, for there were 
divers pieces of great store of plate to use : besides the 
plates that hung on the walls to give light, which were of 
silver gilt, with wax-lights. 

The trumpets blew, and the guests were conducted to 
the table ; where, says Cavendish, " the service came up in 
such abundance, both costly and full of devices, with such 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 217 

a pleasant noise of music, that the Frenchmen, as it seemed, 
were wrapped up in a heavenly paradise." 

The Cardinal was not there ; but, at the second course, 
he "came in, booted and spurred, suddenly amongst them ; 
at whose coming there was great joy, every man rising 
from his place." But my Lord Cardinal made them all be 
seated, and being in his riding apparel, called for his chair, 
and sate him down in the midst of the high table, and was 
there as merry and pleasant as ever I saw him in all my 
life. 

" Presently after came up the second course, which was 
above a hundred several devices, which were so goodly and 
costly that I think the Frenchmen never saw the like. Bat 
the rarest curiosity of all the rest, they all wondered at 
(which indeed was worthy of wonder) was a castle and 
images in the same, like St. Paul's church for the model of 
it. There were beast, birds, fowls, — personages most ex- 
cellently made ; some fighting with swords, some with guns, 
others with cross-bows ; some dancing with ladies, some on 
horseback in complete armour, justling with long and sharp 
spears, with many more strange devices. Among others, I 
noted there was a chess-board made of spice-plate, with men 
of the same, and good proportion. And because the French- 
men are very expert at that sport, my Lord Cardinal gave 
that to a French gentleman, commanding that there should 
be made a good case, to convey the same into his country. 

" Then called my lord for a great bowl of gold, filled with 
hippocras, and putting off his cap, said, ' I drink a health to 
the king my sovereign lord, and next unto the king, your 
master ;' and when he had drank a hearty draught, he 
desired the grand master to pledge him a cup, which cup 
was worth five hundred marks, and so all the lords in order 
pledged these great princes. Then went the cup merrily 
about, so that many Frenchmen were led to their beds. 
Then went my lord into his privy chamber, making a short 

19 



218 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

supper, or rather a short repast, and then returned again 
into the presence chamber amongst the Frenchmen, be- 
having himself in so loving a sort and so familiarly towards 
them that they could not sufficiently commend him. And 
while they were in communication and pastime, all their 
livery were served to their chambers ; every chamber had 
a basin and ewer of silver, and a great livery-pot, with 
plenty of wine and sufficient of everything." 

Such were the merry and gorgeous doings at Hampton 
Court, then in all the glory of its newness, in the days of 
Wolsey's prosperity. I am afraid the story of Henry VIII. 
coming to see this splendid palace on its first being built, 
and saying in a jealous surprise, " My Lord Cardinal, is 
this a dwelling for a subject ?" and the courtly Cardinal 
replying, " My gracious liege, it is not intended for a sub- 
ject ; it is meant only for the greatest and most bounteous 
king in Christendom," is too good to be true ; for although 
Wolsey did give up this favourite palace to his royal master, 
it was long afterwards, and only on the palpable outbreak 
of his displeasure, as a most persuasive peace-offering ; an 
offering which, though especially acceptable, failed never- 
theless to ensure lasting peace. The sun of the great Car- 
dinal was already in its decline. His fair Protestant enemy 
was in possession of the king's ear and mind, and he had 
soon to make his sorrowful exclamation : 

Farewell ! a long farewell to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him ; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost; 
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, 
And then he falls as I do. I have ventured, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory ; 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 219 

At length broke under me ; and now has left me, 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye ! 
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours ! 
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes and their ruin, 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have : 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to rise again! 

The story of the ambition and greatness of Wolsey is a 
splendid and rare story ; but what would it have been with- 
out his fall ? Had he gone down to the grave in the ful- 
ness of his age, and the undiminished strength of his power, 
it would have been looked upon as a wondrous career of 
prosperity, and would have excited but little curiosity in 
posterity ; but his fall came, to fix it on the heart of all time. 
Never were mortal fortunes so complete in their light and 
shade, in their height and depth, as his. While we are 
gazing on the authority and the gay pageantries of the 
long life of the great man, as on the brightness of a summer 
day that seems as if it would shine on for ever ; suddenly 
the clouds blacken overhead, the lightning flames abroad, 
the tempest falls, with deluging torrents and a rending 
thunderbolt, and when it is past — we gaze in silent astonish- 
ment on a scene of blackened desolation ! 

The fall of Wolsey is one of the most complete and per- 
fect things in the history of man. The hold which he had 
so long on that fierce and lionlike king — that passionate 
and capricious king — is amazing ; but at once it gives way, 
and down he goes for ever. But, great as he was in his 
prosperity, so is he great in his ruin. There are those who 
accuse him of servility and meanness, but they do not well 
comprehend human nature. Wolsey knew himself, his 



220 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

master, and the world ; and Shakspeare, whose own heart 
was the representative of the universal heart of man, has 
shown that he judged justly of Wolsey's spirit in his deli- 
neation of him at this crisis. Wolsey knew himself. He 
knew his own proud ambition, and he knew that his story 
must for ever stand a brilliant point in the annals of his 
country ; but to give to it an effect that would cover a mul- 
titude of sins, and make him, who had hitherto been a 
daring adventurer and a despot of no mean degree, an 
object of lasting commiseration — it was necessary to fall 
with dignity and die with penitence. He knew his master, 
— and his favour once gone ; his resentment once at the 
pitch, by the thwarting of his passions ; his cupidity once 
kindled — there was nothing to expect but destruction, cer- 
tain, and at hand. 

Nay, then, farewell ! 
I have touched the highest point of all my greatness; 
And from that full meridian of my glory 
I haste now to my setting ; I shall fall 
Like a bright exhalation in the evening, 
And no man see me more. 

In the contemplation of Wolsey in his fallen condition, 
we are so much affected by his humility, his candour, and 
his sorrow, that we forget his former haughtiness and his 
crimes. He never accuses his sovereign of inj ustice ; he breaks 
out in no passion against him; he acknowledges that he 
was the creature of his favour, and that all he had — rank 
and fortune — were his to take away, as he had given them. 
His tears for so great a reverse — for such a stripping down 
of power and honour — are natural; and his tears and sor- 
row for his faithful servants open up the noblest place in his 
heart, and go far to make you love and honour him. We 
cannot help comparing the cases of Thomas a Becket and 
his own ; and asking what Wolsey would have done, had 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 221 

he stood in the situation of that daring and indomitable 
churchman. Probably he might have put on the same air 
of menace and defiance. But here matters were in a dif- 
ferent position : Henry VIII. was not Henry II., nor was 
the papal power now of the same terrible force in England. 
Bluff Harry was one that could and would have his will, 
outrageous or bloody as it might be ; and the spirit of the 
Reformation was already shaking the tiara to the ground 
in this country. Under these circumstances, a wise and 
sagacious man would see that there was nothing for it but 
to submit, — with sorrow, which must be felt to the core, 
but with the decency and grave humility of a fallen states- 
man ; and, in these respects, the conduct of Wolsey, through- 
out the melancholy period of his disgrace, must sensibly 
affect every generous mind. There is nothing in all history 
more touching and interesting than his progress northward, 
at the king's command, to retire to his diocese. If any act 
of his after his fall, can bear the construction of servile or 
unworthy of him, it was, that when the king's messenger 
overtook him on his way to Esher, with a ring and a word 
of comfort from the king, and he alighted from his mule, 
and, kneeling in the road, kissed the ring and embraced the 
messenger, sending back his most heartfelt thanks to his 
highness, — and his jester, as a present that he knew would 
be especially welcome. But this was in the very moment 
of his surprise and agony at the king's displeasure, and 
when he was full of the bruising sense of his unlooked-for 
fall. Afterwards, as he progressed from Esher to York, his 
conduct was such as truly seemed to indicate that the words 
which Shakspeare puts into his mouth — 

I feel my heart new opened, 

were those of his genuine feeling. How picturesque and 
solemn that journey ! He went, progressing slowly on his 

19* 



222 V! SIT T0 HAMPTON COURT. 

way from stage to stage, riding on his mule in a grave 
sadness, followed by his troop of faithful servants. Wher- 
ever he came, people flocked out to see him, and to ask his 
blessing ; and everywhere he administered to their wants. 
Tt was then only that he seemed to be the real Christian 
bishop. Wherever he abode for any length of time — as at 
Peterborough, Southwell, and Scroby — he became highly 
popular with both the gentry and the people, and was long 
after remembered in those places. His train had something 
still even of his ancient pomp, for it consisted of one hundred 
and sixty persons, with twelve carts, loaded with goods, 
and others for the carriage of articles of daily use. He 
kept the holidays in the most solemn manner, on Palm 
Sunday going in procession with the monks, and bearing 
his palm with as much humility as the lowest of the com- 
pany. On Maunday Thursday he washed and kissed the 
feet of fifty poor people ; gave each twelve pence, three 
ells of good canvass, for shirts ; a pair of shoes ; and a 
cask of red herrings. On Easter-day he went in procession 
in his cardinal vestments, and sung mass himself solemnly ; 
giving his benediction and "cleane remission to all the 
hearers." He used all his ability wherever he came to 
reconcile the differences of the gentry, and to comfort and 
nourish the poor. Arriving on a wide waste near Ferry- 
bridge, he found upwards of five hundred children assem- 
bled round a great stone cross, seeking his blessing and 
confirmation at his hands. He alighted immediately, and 
confirmed them all before he would leave the place, so that 
he did not arrive at Cawood, his destination, until a late 
hour. 

However much of policy there may have been in this 
conduct of the fallen prelate and prime minister, as we 
cannot doubt there was considerable, yet it would be more 
than uncharitable, it would be false to human nature, not 
to give him credit for feeling deeply the vanity of his past 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 223 

career, and for discovering thus in the last hour, in what 
the true glory and blessing of humanity really lie. In such 
a belief, how beautiful and noble are the sentiments which 
Shakspeare makes him utter, in taking leave of his faithful 
secretary Cromwell : — 

Let's dry our tears ; and thus far hear me, Cromwell : 

And when I am forgotten, as I shall be, 

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 

Of me more must be heard of, — say, I taught thee ; 

Say, VVolsey — that once trod the ways of glory, 

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, — 

Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 

A safe and sure one, though thy master missed it. 

Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me. 

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition ; 

By that sin fell the angels; how can man then, 

The image of his Maker, hope to win by it] 

Love thyself least; cherish those hearts that hate thee: 

Corruption wins not more than honesty : 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 

To silence envious tongues ; be just and fear not : 

Let all the ends thou aims't at be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell! 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. 



It would have been out of nature, on entering Hampton 
Court, not to pause and contemplate for a while the singular 
story and fate of the great man who raised it. These 
ancient towers and courts are full of the memory of that 
strange fortune, and will be for many generations yet ; and 
now that the great mass of the people is at once admitted 
to education and to this place, the history of Wolsey — at 
one time said to be a butcher's son, at another stretching 
his lordly hand over this realm, making foreign princes 



224 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

tremble at it, and reaching it out even to the papal tiara, 
and then again a poor and sinking suppliant, exclaiming — : 

O father abbot, 
An old man broken with the storms of state 
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye ; 
Give him a little earth for charity ! 

will be more widely known and wondered at. But many 
have been the sad and singular passages which have oc- 
curred to royal and ambitious heads in these chambers since 
then. We must, however, pass more fleetly over them than 
over those of the great original builder. 

Henry VIII. used to keep his court here frequently in 
great state, and here he used to celebrate Christmas in all 
its ancient festivity. Here he lost his third wife, Jane Sey- 
mour, a few days after the birth of his son Edward VI., 
and felt or affected much grief on that account, perhaps be- 
cause he had not had the pleasure of cutting off her head. 
Here he married his sixth wife, Lady Catherine Parr, 
w.idow of Neville, Lord Latimer, and sister of the Marquis 
of Northampton. This lady, who had the hardihood to 
marry this royal Bluebeard, after he had divorced two 
wives and chopped off the heads of two others, narrowly 
escaped the fate she so rashly hazarded. The very warrant 
for her committal to the Tower, whence she was only to be 
brought forth to be burnt at the stake for heresy, was 
signed, and on the point of execution, when she acci- 
dentally became aware of it, and managed to sooth the fe- 
rocious tyrant by the most artful submission to his conceit 
of his theological learning, and by rubbing his ulcerated 
leg. 

Here, as we have said, Edward VI. was bora ; and three 
days after, he was baptized in the king's chapel in the 
palace in great state — Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, 
and the Duke of Norfolk, being godfathers. Hampton 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 225 

Court was appropriated by the guardians of Edward as his 
residence, and he was residing here when the council rose 
against the authority of the Protector Somerset, and was 
removed by him hence to Windsor Castle, lest the council 
should obtain possession of his person. Here Bloody Mary, 
and her husband Philip of Spain, passed their honey-moon 
in great retirement ; and here, — when they were desirous 
of effacing from the mind of their sister, the Princess Eliza- 
beth, the recollection of her imprisonment at Woodstock, 
and the vain attempts of their arch-rascal priest Stephen 
Gardiner, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester, to 
coerce her into popery, or to convict her of heresy, and pro- 
bably bring her to the flaming stake, — they invited her to 
spend some time with them, and set on foot banquets, 
masqueings, and all sorts of revelries. Here they kept 
Christmas with her as royally as their father Harry VIII. 
had kept it in his day ; Elizabeth being seated at the royal 
table with their majesties, next the cloth of state, and, at 
the removal of the dishes, served with a perfumed napkin 
and plate of confects by the Lord Paget. Here, too, during 
her stay, they gave a grand tournament, wherein two hun- 
dred spears were broken by the contending knights. Here 
Elizabeth also, when she was become the potent queen in- 
stead of the jealously-watched sister, continued occasionally 
to assemble her brilliant court, and to hold merry Christ- 
mas, as Mary, Edward, and her father had done before. 
Here also the especial festivals of the Christmases of 1572 
and 1593 were kept by her. 

Here James I., notwithstanding his being accustomed to 
the mountain scenery of Scotland, was often to be found, 
loving as well its level richness of scenery as he could have 
done the more magnificent landscapes of Stirling or Holy- 
rood. He had a particular liking to this palace. It was 
here that, in the early part of his reign, 1604, he summoned 
his famous conference of bishops and Puritan leaders, to 



226 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

confer on the settlement of religion — or rather for this 
British Solomon to have an opportunity of showing his 
learning and powers of disputation. The conference, as all 
the world knows, ended as might be expected before such a 
man. " He talked much Latin," says Sir John Harrington, 
who was present, " and disputed much with Dr. Reynolds ; 
telling the petitioners that they wanted to strip Christ 
again ; and bade them get away with their snivelling." 

When they asked for the renewal of liberty to hold those 
of their meetings called prophesy ings, he burst out into a 
virulent rage, saying — " Ay, is it that ye would be at ? If 
you aim at a Scotch Presbytery, let me tell you, it agrees as 
well with monarchy as God and the Devil. Then shall Jack 
and Tom and Will and Dick meet, and censure me and my 
council. Therefore I reiterate my former speech : " Le roi 
s'avisera. Stay, I pray you, for one seven years before 
you demand, and then, if you find me grow pursy and fat, 
I may perchance hearken to you, for that government will 
keep me in health, and find me work enough." The end 
of it was, that he cried out — " No Bishop no King /" To 
which the bishop replied, that " surely his majesty spoke by 
the immediate inspiration of God." And thereon James 
declared to the Puritans, that if they did not speedily con- 
form themselves, " he would harrie them out of the king- 
dom, or worse." Such is the certain consequence of dis- 
puting with royal heads ; and on the heels of this, instead 
of the Puritans retaining even their old freedom, a fierce 
proclamation was issued, commanding immediate and gene- 
ral conformity. 

In 1606, the king and queen gave here a splendid enter- 
tainment to Francis, Prince of Vaudemois, son of the Duke 
of Lorraine, and to a large company of noblemen and gen- 
tlemen, keeping up the feastings and festivities for a fort- 
night. Here also died the queen of James, Anne of Den- 
mark, in 1618. 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 227 

The unfortunate Charles I. resided at Hampton in his 
happiest and most melancholy days. Like Mary and Philip, 
he and his queen Henrietta came hither to spend the honey- 
moon ; the plague having obliged them to leave London, — 
and here they remained till it was past. Nineteen years 
afterwards Charles and Henrietta again retreated hither 
under more menacing circumstances. A worse plague had 
broken out — the pestilence of civil dissension. Charles, by 
his high notions of prerogative, had brought his subjects to 
the verge of rebellion. His arbitrary assumptions of eccle- 
siastical supremacy ; his attempts to force on Scotland epis- 
copacy ; his seizure of ship-money ; his violation of the 
privileges of parliament by personally attempting to arrest 
five of its members in their places in the house ; these, and 
similar demonstrations of despotic will, had roused the king- 
dom, and especially the capital against him. He was obliged 
to flee hither from the presence of the infuriated people, who 
surrounded Whitehall ; and not the common people only, 
but the city militia, with Major- General Shipton at their 
head, conducting the accused members to the house with a 
triumph of armed boats, and other vessels carrying cannon, 
while the crowds, investing Whitehall both by land and 
water, cried amain — "What has become of the king and 
his cavaliers ? — and whither are they fled ?" 

No language can more forcibly answer the fierce popular 
query than that of the historian Hume. " The king, appre- 
hensive of danger from the enraged multitude, had retired 
to Hampton Court ; deserted by all the world, and over- 
whelmed with grief, shame, and remorse for the fatal mea- 
sures into which he had been hurried. His distressed situ- 
ation he could no longer ascribe to the rigours of destiny, 
or the malignity of enemies : his own precipitancy and in- 
discretion must bear the blame of whatever disasters should 
henceforth befall him. The most faithful of his adherents, 
between sorrow and indignation were confounded with re* 



228 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

flections on what had happened, and what was likely to 
follow. Seeing every prospect blighted, faction triumphant, 
the discontented populace inflamed to a degree of fury, they 
utterly despaired of success in a cause to whose ruin friends 
and enemies seemed equally to conspire." 

Such was the wretched condition of royalty in Hampton 
Court at that moment. The queen, despairing of safety, 
fled to France, and Charles was quickly enveloped in the 
very heart of that tempest which now was blackening to its 
discharge. Years of civil wrath left this once gay palace a 
place of solitude and desolation ; and when Charles again 
became its inhabitant, it was in a still more lamentable con- 
dition. He was the thrall of his triumphant subjects ; sold 
by the army of Scotland to the army of England ; the mere 
phantom of a monarch, awaiting, in the midst of the sorrow- 
ful remnant of a once brilliant court, whose noblest orna- 
ments had fallen on many a battle-plain in his cause, or 
were arrayed against him, or had fled for safety to other 
countries, the determination of his enemies. His queen was 
not with him — he had seen her for the last time — and, 
escaping from this sad mockery of a court, to seek one more 
chance for life — he bade his last adieu to Hampton, and 
soon arrived — at the scaffold. 

The next scene in the great political drama presented 
here was to find Oliver Cromwell, the destroyer of the 
monarchy and the betrayer of the republic, in possession of 
it. Cromwell, one of the ablest men and the most precious 
hypocrites who ever covered ambitious designs beneath the 
double cloak of liberty and religion, was now lord of Hamp- 
ton Court, Windsor, and Whitehall. It was in such places 
that the man, who professed that he had been called by the 
Lord to pull down monarchy, with all its vanities, follies, 
and crimes, and to set up liberty in its purity, and religion 
in its simplicity and power — now held his court in state, 
as regal as any monarch. It was in this palace that he 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 229 

married his daughter Elizabeth to Lord Falconberg ; giving 
another to Lord Rich, the grandson and heir of the Earl of 
Warwick, thus allying his line with the nobility of the 
country ; and it was here that he lost his favourite daughter, 
Mrs. Claypole, who on her dying bed called on him to re- 
trace his path filled with blood and perfidy, with a heart 
earnestly in quest of repentance. Her words stuck fast in 
his conscience, and left him full of horror and dismay. Me- 
lancholy as was the condition of Charles, as his last steps 
wandered through the saloons of this palace, it was nothing 
to that of Cromwell. Without, the hands of assassins threat- 
ened him — within, conscience, in the voice of his own fa- 
vourite child, perpetually pursued him. All peace of mind 
had perished. He was haunted by the fiends of guilty am- 
bition ; by the sense of political insecurity ; by the feeling 
that he had no real friend : and that, while the weight of 
those national affairs which he had piled on his own shoul- 
ders was ready to crush him, his foes and disappointed rivals 
in legions were watching to add their weight to that, and to 
trample with exultation on his grave. He felt himself not 
merely the destroyer of a monarch, but the traitor of liberty ; 
and if ever there was a spectacle to angels and to men, it 
was Cromwell in his last days, wandering from palace to 
palace — wasting away, in the fever of the mind and the 
breaking down of the body — and haunted with those ter- 
rors of death, that he had never felt amid the smoke and 
thunders of a score of battles. 

It was at this period that George Fox, the founder of the 
Society of Friends, coming to Hampton Court to beg him to 
put a stop to religious persecution, met him riding in the 
park, and in his own expressive language as he drew near 
him said, he "felt a waft of death to go forth from him ;" 
and coming up to him, beheld him with astonishment, look- 
ing already like a dead man. George had been accustomed 
to have interviews with Cromwell, who used to express 

20 



230 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

great pleasure in his society, and would say, " Come again, 
George, come often, for I feel that if thou and I were oftener 
together we should be nearer to each other." He now 
desired George to come to the palace the next day ; but 
George looked on him already as a dead man, and on going 
to the palace-gate found him too ill to be seen by any one, 
and in a few days he died. 

If the two last scenes here were strange, the next was 
much stranger. Cromwell's power was gone like a dream 
— the republic had vanished, monarchy was restored ; and 
here was Charles, the exile, the son of the melancholy 
monarch, revelling in the midst of the gayest and most 
profligate court that ever insulted the spirit and the decorum 
of a too compliant nation. Here was the man that learned 
no wisdom from adversity, nor feeling from the sufferings 
of his father's friends, nor decency from respect to the sober 
habits of those who had recalled him voluntarily to the 
throne of his ancestors. Here he came, with all the heart- 
less foppery and rampart licentiousness of the French court 
pouring like a pestilence in at his heels. Here were his 
picked friends, Buckingham, Rochester, Grammont, Jermyn; 
his bigoted but sensual brother James ; with their creatures, 
Chimnch and Brounkner, — their shameless mistresses 
wearing the titles and coronets of some of the noblest 
houses of England. The palace was turned into a brothel, 
and the astonished nation rewarded for its recall of the 
Stuarts, by seeing its ancient sobriety laughed to scorn, and 
its morals corrupted by royal authority. 

It was in this very palace, that Charles introduced to his 
young queen, a stranger in this country, his notorious 
mistress, Lady Castlemaine, and compelled his insulted and 
revolting wife to accept her as a lady of her bed-chamber. 
But we will not follow further this disgusting history: 
Charles fell the victim of his excesses, and James was 
driven out of the realm by his indignant subjects. William 



VISIT TO HAMPTOX COURT. 231 

and Mary came in, and added greatly to this palace, making 
it their favourite abode. The subsequent monarchs, down 
to George II., occasionally resided here, and their state beds 
and other vestiges of them yet remain. Their reigns, how- 
ever, do not furnish passages occurring here, of so striking 
a character as those we have referred to ; and Ave will now 
pass from the history of the palace, to its present ap- 
pearance and condition. 

There are two entrances to Hampton Court Palace — one 
by the gates opposite to the gates of Bushy Park, leading 
to the front of William III., and the other by the gates 
facing Hampton Green, leading to Wolsey's courts. We 
will take the former first, in order to survey the gardens and 
extensive grounds as left by William, and then pass to Wol- 
sey's portion, and the picture galleries, by Wolsey's gate. 

It is well known that Bushy Park was intended by Wol- 
sey to form part of his parkof Hampton Court, but the public 
road passing between Bushy Park and Hampton Court, 
the public were so much opposed to its being taken away 
and made more circuitous, that even Wolsey in the pleni- 
tude of his power and royal favour did not find it practica- 
ble or prudent to insist on removing it ; and thus Bushy and 
Hampton Court Parks have continued separate to this day. 
Bushy is laid out with a fine sheet of water, having in its 
centre a bronze statue of Diana, and thence called the Diana 
Water, and with splendid rows of horse-chestnut trees, on 
each side of the public road, which runs through it to Ted- 
dington and Twickenham. In it also is the house in which 
William IV. passed thirty-six years of his life, and where 
his widow, the queen dowager, yet resides. It is a very 
pleasant drive through this park ; especially when the chest 
nuts are in full blossom, or in autumn when the nuts are 
falling amongst the discoloured leaves, and the deer are 
eagerly running to feed on them. The beauty of these 
trees is great ; their fine massy piles of foliage, their wide 
and low-sweeping boughs, and the length of the avenues, 



232 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

— being no less than nine of them running parallel for up- 
wards of a mile. The centre avenue, which is used as the 
public road, is of a noble width, and the gates at each end 
every day stand open, so that you are surprised that the 
deer do not all run out. On the contrary, they are so trained 
that such an occurrence as the attempt of any one to pass 
out is very rare, and such a vagrant is always shot, to put 
a stop to its evil example. The herd will come up close to 
the road side as a stage-coach is driving past, and graze 
within a few yards of it without the slightest notice of it. 

But leaving Bushy Park behind us, and entering the 
gates of Hampton Court opposite, we are agreeably struck 
with the aspect of the palace gardens. They are on a per- 
fect flat, and though laid out in the Dutch style, you are 
inclined to think that no style could have suited the situa- 
tion better. The great terrace-walk which leads past Wil- 
liam III.'s front of the palace, stretches on in a straight line 
before you to the banks of the Thames, along which it is 
continued, veering away to the left between the river and 
the park, as far as opposite to the village of Thames Ditton, 
the whole length of the walk being half a mile.* On your 
right, behind a high wall, lies that part of the grounds called 
the Wilderness, which is full of walks overshadowed with 
trees of the loftiest and noblest growth, and in which, near 
the gates, is the celebrated Maze — a labyrinth, formed by 
pleached hedges of hornbeam. This sort of plaything was 
a great favourite with our ancestors ;t and if we are to 

* The whole length of the walks in the gardens is calculated to be 
three miles, and the palace itself to occupy eight acres. 

f It is very probable that the shepherds were the earliest introducers 
of the Maze into England, perhaps assisted by some classical monk, who 
had read of the Daedalion labyrinth, for, on many of our downs, forests, 
and chases, they were found cut in the turf. Such a one is yet to be seen 
at St. Anne's Well, near Nottingham, still called " The Shepherd's 
Race," and another on St. Catherine's Hill, near Winchester. They 
were afterwards, as knots or mazes, introduced into gardens. 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 233 

j udge by the number of people who throng to " thread the 
maze," and by the laughter and merry voices which you 
always find here, is no less agreeable to our cotemporaries. 
There is a seat elevated on an ascent of several steps close 
by, for the person who shows the Maze to mount, and so 
direct the progress of those within, where those who prefer 
to see others walk the labyrinth, rather than do it them- 
selves, may have that satisfaction at their ease ; and will, 
do doubt, come away convinced, as we are, that more 
pleasure is conferred by this simple piece of mechanism, on 
the multitude, than by all the paintings and antiquities in 
the palace. 

But, leaving the Wilderness on our right, we soon pass 
the old tennis-court, said to be the finest in Europe, and still 
used for that amusement, and find ourselves in front of the 
palace. This is of a Grecian character ; and here you find 
pleasure-grounds swelling out into the half of a circle, 
divided by three broad walks, diverging as three radii from 
the centre, where you stand, at the gate of the palace. The 
sections between these walks are large lawns of the most 
neatly trimmed turf, surrounded by flower borders and rows 
of evergreen trees, — a variegated holly, and a yew alter- 
nating. The effect of the different coloured verdure of these 
trees is excellent, and the rich masses of flowers around 
them, in the borders and in detached beds, contrast admira- 
bly. These flowers are the most splendid that each season 
can show ; and I noticed a richness of beauty produced by 
our own simple cowslips and oxlips, in the spring, which 
was far greater than I could have believed them capable of, 
and which I would recommend to the imitation of those 
who are fond of a garden. It was effected by planting the 
oxlips and the red and the yellow cowslips in beds of a con- 
siderable size, so mixed and alternated as to give a mosaic 
surface of the richest colouring. 

20* 



234 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

A breadth of lawn also forms the outer boundary of these 
sections, and on it, beneath the evergreen trees, are placed 
seats for the convenience of tired strollers, and loungers who 
don't wish to be tired. The walks are rolled to the most 
agreeable smoothness ; and in the centre of the garden is an 
ample fountain, in the circular basin of which is a famous shoal 
of gold and silver fish who receive the crumbs and admiration 
of all visiters. It was probably this fountain which, before 
the recasting of the gardens, was adorned with figures 
of syrens, and other statues by Fanelli. The garden is 
bounded by the park, which extends along the banks of the 
Thames as far as Kingston, and the lines of the three diverg- 
ing walks are continued along the park by three noble 
avenues of lime trees ; the avenue to the left terminated by 
the view of Kingston church, and the area of the centre one 
occupied by a canal of nearly three-quarters of a mile in 
length. These avenues are now in the pride of their growth, 
and with their long vistas, their noble piles of verdant foli- 
age, and wide stretching amplitude of lower branches, are 
magnificent objects, and add greatly to the stately and de- 
lightful aspect of the whole scene. The water which sup- 
plies the palace, and gardens, though they are situated 
on the very margin of the Thames, is conveyed partly by 
pipes from the heights of Combe Warren, three miles from 
Hampton, passing through the Thames, and partly by a 
branch of the river Colne, cut, by Wolsey, ten miles for this 
purpose. The water is said to be particularly fine. 

At the south-eastern corner of this front a door leads 
you into what is called Queen Mary's Garden ; that is, a 
garden laid out by William and Mary, by whom this part 
of the palace was built. This is exceedingly pleasant. It 
is overlooked from the south windows of the palace, and by 
green terraces at each side. The centre forms a sort of valley 
between these terraces, planted, like the outer garden, with 
fine variegated hollies and yews alternating, with flower 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 235 

borders, fountains seen playing sweetly near the lower end ; 
and on the south-west terrace, a fine old pleached walk of 
elm, called Queen Mary's Walk, the trees seeming to have 
grown into one solid green arch. Orange trees are ranged 
in front of the palace, where are, in the lower story, green- 
houses to receive them in winter. Some of these trees are 
said to be as old as the reign of William. In an inner gar- 
den is the greenhouse, containing the celebrated vine, de- 
scribed as the largest in the world. It is one hundred and 
ten feet long, has often from two to three thousand bunches 
of grapes upon it, said to weigh about fourteen hundred 
weight. These are regularly sent to the queen's table. 

The entrance to the portion of the palace built by Wolsey 
is by a sort of outer court of great extent, the gates of which 
have their pillars surmounted by a large lion and unicorn 
as supporters of the crown royal, and each of the side gates 
by a military trophy. Along the left side of the area are 
barracks and such offices ; the greater part of the right side 
is open towards the river, and there stand nine as lofty and 
noble elms, in a row, as perhaps any part of England can 
match. Two gateways are before you ; the one to the left 
leading to the kitchen -court, the centre one to the first 
quadrangle. This chief gateway has been restored, in ex- 
cellent keeping with the old building, and has a noble 
aspect as you approach it, being flanked with octagon 
towers, pierced with a fine pointed arch, over which are 
cut, in rich relief, the royal arms, and above them projects 
a large and handsome bay-window, framed of stone. 

You now enter by a Gothic archway the first of the 
courts of Wolsey remaining. These two are said to have 
been the meanest then in the palace. There were origi- 
nally five ; the three finest of which were pulled down to 
make way for William III.'s great square mass of brick- 
work. The writers who saw it in its glory, describe it in 
entireness as the most splendid palace in Europe. Grotius 



236 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

says, " other palaces are residences of kings, but this is of 
the gods." Hentzner, who saw it in Elizabeth's time, 
speaks of it with astonishment, and says, " the rooms being 
very numerous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, 
and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces ; 
in others Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely 
natural. In one chamber are several excessively rich tapes- 
tries, which are hung up when the queen gives audience to 
foreign ambassadors. All the walls of the palace shine 
with gold and silver. Here is likewise a certain cabinet 
called Paradise, where, besides that everything glitters so 
with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one's eyes, 
there is a musical instrument made all of glass except the 
strings." 

It was indeed a Dutch taste which levelled all these 
stately buildings to the ground, to erect the great square 
mass which replaced them. A glorious view, if old draw- 
ings are to be believed, must all that vast and picturesque 
variety of towers, battlements, tall mullioned windows, 
cupolas and pinnacles, have made, as they stood under the 
clear heaven glittering in the sun. Those two courts which 
remain are said to have consisted only of offices, and, in- 
deed, we see that the first court we enter is, as represented 
in old drawings, much lower than the next, which did not 
itself nearly equal the stateliness of the rest. Yet the old 
dark- red brick walls, with still darker lines of bricks in dia- 
mond shapes running along them — the mixture of Gothic 
archways and square mullioned windows — the battle- 
mented roofs, turrets, and cupolas, and tall twisted and 
cross-banded chimneys, all are deeply interesting, as be- 
longing to the unquestionable period of Wolsey, belonging 
altogether to that Tudor or transition style, when castles 
were fast turning into peaceful mansions, and the beauties 
of ecclesiastical architecture were called in, to aid in giving 
ornament where before strength had only been required. 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 237 

In this first quadrangle, the tall gable of the banqueting- 
hall, with figures of dogs and griffins pursuing each other 
down its roof; a griffin erect, supporting a vane on the sum- 
mit; a large window of the perpendicular order; the octagon 
towers projecting from the wall of that side of the quad- 
rangle ; the gateway with its Gothic arch, tall bay-window, 
and armorial escutcheon, and the compartmented roof of the 
archway itself, are all excellent in their kind. The ceiling 
in this archway has a large rose in the centre, and in the 
different compartments, the portcullis, fleur-de-lis, and other 
symbols of the Tudor arms, with the letters H. A., no doubt 
intended for Henry and Ann (Boleyn). On the gateway 
tower of this and the next quadrangle are eight out of the 
twelve heads of Roman emperors sent by Leo X. to Wolsey. 
The four in the second quadrangle are almost totally de- 
cayed, the two in the first court continuing much more 
perfect. They appear to have been made of some very 
perishable composition. 

The second court is still more striking than the first, hav- 
ing the side of the banqueting-hall on the left, and in the 
tower under which you enter, an ancient astronomical clock, 
erected in 1540, and said to be the first of the kind made in 
England ; or rather, we should say, here is the clock-face, 
the clock itself having been some two years ago, it is said, 
taken away to be repaired, and not yet brought back. The 
dial, however, is curious, having, like continental clocks, the 
twenty-four instead of the twelve hours marked upon it, be- 
sides sundry adornments of zodiacal signs, and solar and 
lunar phenomena. But the most remarkable thing in this 
court is a ponderous Grecian colonnade built by Sir Chris- 
topher Wren. The barbarism of such a piece of work 
in a Gothic building instantly strikes every eye, and even 
those who are not learned enough to detect the cause, are 
sensible of the painful effect. That Sir Christopher under- 
stood Grecian architecture St. Paul's is an illustrious evi- 



238 * VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

dence, otherwise such outrageous blindness to the beauty 
of our own ecclesiastical architecture would have sent him 
down to posterity as a man utterly devoid of taste. No 
two men ever demonstrated so strongly the effect of edu- 
cation as Wren and Inigo Jones. They were taught to 
regard classical architecture as including in itself all that is 
beautiful in nature and in art ; and those lovely and inimi- 
table Christian temples in which the human mind has re- 
vealed its utmost reach of poetry and sublimity, those fabrics 
which stand here and there throughout England like glori- 
ous dreams of imagination, or like the work of angels and 
the conceptions of archangels, rather than those of humanity 
— stones reared into majesty and chiselled into life and 
aerial lightness — were to them as masses of barbarism, and 
the grotesque enormities of men in the dark ages. How 
inconceivable is the blinding and besotting influence even 
of that classical erudition which should throw over the mind 
the very sunshine of intellectual grace and perception of the 
beautiful. But more of this anon. Wren built this mon- 
strous mass in Hampton Court ; and Inigo Jones, when 
employed to design a bishop's throne for the rich choir of 
Winchester, instead of matching it with the elegance of the 
whole Gothic carving and architecture of that noble pile, 
struck up a Grecian absurdity, which the return of true 
taste has wisely thrust away again. 

Passing through the Queen's Staircase, we come into the 
court built by William III. This is another violation of all 
architectural unity, being the Palladian linked in unlawful 
wedlock with the Gothic ; but we need not stop to lament 
that now. It is in itself a goodly and substantial fabric, — 
the space between its upper and lower story is decorated with 
a series of fresco paintings representing the labours of Her- 
cules, but which exposure to the weather has rendered nearly 
blank, one alone having been refreshed as if to show what 
they would be with similar attention. This court has a 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 039 

fountain in it, probably occupying the position of the one 
mentioned by Hentzner in the original building.* 

It would have been a pleasure to wander through the 
chapel, the banqueting-hall, Wolsey's withdrawing-room, 
filled with ancient and most curious tapestries : the kitchen 
court, with its old detached circular kitchen, of the true 
antique sort, like some huge dark lantern set upon the 
ground; and other parts of the building, not thrown open 
to the public, but to be seen by application to the house- 
keeper : — but my space warns me that I must hasten 
through the state apartments, in which a vast treasure of 
paintings is kept for the public enjoyment ; and even there 
only be able to point to some of the most remarkable 
subjects. The hall, the chapel, the withdrawing-room, are 
all splendid specimens of Gothic grandeur, and possess 
many historic associations. In the hall, Surrey wrote on a 
pane of glass some of his verses to Geraldine ; and there, too, 
it is said, the play of Henry VIII., exhibiting the fall of 
Wolsey in the very creation of his former glory, was once 
acted, Shakspeare himself being one of the performers ! 
But are not all these things to be found in the full histories 
of this noble old house ? Therefore we will ascend the 
grand staircase, with a thousand eager visiters, on our way 
to the state-rooms. 

The mere catalogue of the contents of these rooms, as 
sold here for sixpence, contains thirty closely printed pages ; 
judge, then, how little more is in my power than to point 
an admiring finger at some work of pre-eminent beauty as 
I pass. The whole place is full of paintings, of which many 
are worthy of all the fame of their great originators ; and, 
if a host of others are of less artistic value, they have all, 
more or less, an historical one, which makes one glad to find 

* On our last visit here we were glad to see an artist engaged in re- 
storing the whole. 



240 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

even the worst of them here, and anxiously desirous that 
we could restore the name, and recall the story of others, 
that tell plainly that they were of no mean character. We 
have here specimens of art from the earliest days of its 
European revival to some of the present century ; and the 
opportunity of studying varieties of style and merit here 
contrasted, is not the least of the benefits offered to the 
public. 

We now ascend the Grand Staircase, in order to make 
the circuit of the rooms. This is a noble approach to the 
state-rooms, and is painted by Verrio, in that gorgeous style 
which, though the interest diminishes in examination of 
details, yet, as a whole, is very gay and splendid. The 
ceiling and upper portions of the walls are filled with 
mythological and allegorical groups. The figures in general 
are too ponderous for their ethe rial - character and position ; 
yet here and there your eye is caught by some shape of 
sweetest grace, or countenance of sunny beauty. The 
lower panels are ornamented with paintings of military 
trophies, and above them, on your left-hand as you ascend, 
are the twelve Cassars ; while before you Julian the Apos- 
tate is writing in a modern book, and with a modern ink- 
stand before him, and Mercury appearing to encourage him 
in his labours. 

The next is the Guard Chamber, a room of princely di- 
mensions, the walls of which are nearly covered with arms 
— swords, muskets, daggers, halberts, with drums, banda- 
liers, and other equipments, sufficient for a thousand men — 
disposed in a variety of forms, by the same person who ar- 
ranged the arms in the little armoury in the Tower of Lon- 
don. The remainder of the space is occupied by a large 
painting of the Battle of Constantine by Julio Romano ; the 
Colosseum, by Canaletti ; eight battle pieces, by Rugendas, 
to which a peculiar character is given by the strong light 
thrown upon particular figures ; six portraits of English 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 241 

admirals, by Bockman ; and Queen Elizabeth's Porter by 
Zucchero. 

We next find ourselves in the First Presence Chamber ; 
the canopy of William III.'s throne being the first thing 
which meets the eye at entering. Here, as was fitting, you 
find too the principal figures are those belonging to William's 
court. Himself landing at Torbay, forms the subject of a 
very large picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in which he is 
represented on horseback, in armour, with plenty of alle- 
gorical figures about him : his queen, by Wissing, and eight 
of the principal beauties of his court, by Kneller, occupy a 
large portion of the walls. These ladies are, the Duchess 
of St. Albans, a granddaughter of Nell Gwynn; the Countess 
of Essex ; Countess of Peterborough ; Countess of Ranelagh ; 
Miss Pitt ; Duchess of Grafton ; Countess of Dorset ; and 
Lady Middleton. They are full-length figures, represented, 
perhaps, too tall for their present position, and wanting 
variety of attitude ; yet there are those amongst them who 
would have been admired even in Charles II.'s court, and 
whose reputations are much better than if they had been 
there. Amongst them, Miss Pitt is a lovely young creature 
of seventeen, with an expression of the greatest sweetness 
and sincerity of character ; the Duchess of Grafton has a 
handsome and very intelligent countenance ; and Lady Mid- 
dleton and the Countess of Ranelagh claim the title of fine 
women. 

Amongst the other paintings in the apartment which de- 
serve particular attention, are a Saint's Head by Lanfranco, 
full of strength and expression : a portrait by Titian, a rough 
keeper-like personage, but with a countenance more like that 
of a living man than a painting ; a Jesuit-like portrait by 
Giorgione ; and by it a portrait of a man showing a trick, 
by L. da Vinci ; St. Matthew called from the receipt of 
Custom, by Mabuse, is curious, as exhibiting the style and 
laborious peculiarities of that old painter. Besides these ? 

21 



242 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

are Sir John Lawson, by Lely ; a portrait by Pordenone ; 
old woman blowing charcoal, by Holbein ; a portrait by 
Dobson; Pharaoh overthrown, by Jordaens ; St. William, by 
Giorgione ; a man reading, by A. Catalani ; a landscape, by 
Schiavone ; Calumny, an allegory, by Zucchero ; portraits, 
by P. Bordone, Bassano, Tintoretto ; and other paintings, 
by P. Veronese, Gennari, etc. 

Amongst the numerous paintings in the Second Presence 
Chamber, we may single out as curious, a large picture of 
the Doge of Venice in the Senate-house, by Fialetti, which 
formerly belonged to Sir Henry Wotton, and represents 
him sitting with his hat on at the Doge's right hand; the 
sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, the rival of Benvenuto Cellini, 
by Correggio ; Mrs. Leman, Vandyke's mistress, by Van- 
dyke, a lovely woman ; a Holy Family by F. Vanni ; 
Virgin and Child, by Bronzino ; an Italian lady, by Parme- 
giano, in a most elaborately painted dress ; and the Sea- 
sons, by Brughel and Rothenamer, in which all sorts of 
beasts, birds, and fishes, are brought together in an appa- 
rent state of great wonder and excitement. For their ex- 
cellence we must notice the portrait of a sculptor, by Bas- 
sano, which, for strength of natural expression and colour- 
ing, would do honour to Titian ; a bandit-like warrior by 
Giorgione ; the female painter Artemisia Gentileschi, by 
herself; a most admirable portrait of Alessandro de Medici, 
by Titian ; Charles I. on horseback, one of the three well- 
known equestrian paintings of Charles by Vandyke, the 
others being at Windsor and Warwick Castles ; Guercino 
by himself ; the marriage of St. Catherine, by P. Veronese ; 
St. Francis and the Virgin, by Carlo Maratti ; Peter Oliver 
the painter, by Hanneman, a countenance of great life ; a 
Dutch gentleman, by Vander Heist ; and Jacob, with Ra- 
chel and Leah. This last is very beautiful ; it is full of the 
simplicity of the patriarchal age, of the sunny glow of the 
climate, and the individual characters of the three chief 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 243 

personages. The countenance of Jacob has great beauty, 
and the freedom and spirit of his attitude are masterly. 
There are many other paintings by eminent masters ; and 
over each door Roman ruins, by Rousseau, by whom there 
are others in other rooms. 

In the Audience Chamber, the eye is first arrested by 
five very large Scripture pieces by Ricci. Christ in the 
Rich Man's House ; Christ healing the Sick ; the Woman 
taken in Adultery ; the Woman of Faith ; and the Woman 
of Samaria. Horace Walpole has pronounced these paint- 
ings to be trash ; but spite of a good deal of coldness of 
tone and hardness of colouring, and a want of depth of 
shade, they possess merit of the highest kind. The heads 
of the old Pharisees are vigorously and truthfully designed ; 
the grouping is frequently felicitous ! and the spirit of the 
transaction, and the passions and feelings of the spectators, 
are clearly developed. In the Healing of the Sick, the 
figures of the benevolent Saviour, and of the Pharisee be- 
hind him, are very striking — and in the left-hand corner, 
the limbs of the sick boy, who is held in the arms of his 
stooping mother, are most touching in their expression of 
wasting and feebleness. 

We have besides these, admirable portraits of Ignatius 
Loyola by Titian, of Titian's uncle, by Titian, and a Spanish 
lady by Sebastian del Piombo ; a full-length of Elizabeth 
of Bohemia, by Honthorst ; and paintings, — Venus and 
Cupid by Rubens, after Titian ; Venus, a heavy Dutch 
figure, but the flesh exquisitely painted ; two landscapes by 
Swanefeldt, in which a story is told, — Venus attended by 
Cupid carrying away a child from a sleeping group, in one 
piece, and in the other delivering the child to an armed 
band ; a most curious but revolting Resurrection and Judg- 
ment, by Heemskirk, in which skeletons and figures, hav- 
ing only half recovered their flesh, are strangely mixed with 
greet living people'; fiends dragging their victims to the in- 



244 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

fernal regions ; and Mammon crowned, drawn in his car 
by imps and monsters. The heads of St. Peter and Judas, 
by Lanfranco ; a Holy Family, by Correggio ; a Madonna 
and Child over each door, by Parmegiano ; and one of 
Mabuse's curious pieces, a Madonna and Child, with St. 
Andrew and St. Michael, deserve particular attention, the 
former for their high merit, the last for its singularity. 

In the King's Drawing Room, as you enter, your eye is 
immediately arrested by an immense painting of George 
III. on horseback at a review, with the Prince of Wales, 
the Duke of York, and officers, by Sir William Beechey. 
There are two very large pictures also, by Tintoretto — the 
Muses, and the Presentation of Queen Esther ; Joseph and 
Potiphar's Wife, by Gentileschi ; the Offering of the Magi, 
by Luca Giordano, singular for the bright pink tint with 
which the flesh, and in particular the faces of the personages 
in it are flushed. The Cornaro family by Old Stone, repre- 
senting four generations, in which the preservation of the 
family likeness amid the variations of age, youth, childhood, 
and individuality, is admirably maintained. A Holy Family 
by Parmegiano ; Christ's Agony in the Garden, and the 
Angels appearing to the Shepherds, by N. Poussin ; and 
the curious family of Pordenone by himself, are perhaps 
the most striking of the lesser paintings. 

We now arrive at William III.'s Bed-room, in which the 
state bed of Queen Charlotte stands, and, with its hangings 
of flowered needlework, embroidered on a rich white satin 
ground, executed for the queen by orphan daughters of cler- 
gymen, is extremely beautiful. An old clock is pointed out 
to you as made by Daniel Quare, to go twelve months 
without winding up. The ceiling was painted by Verrio, 
representing Night and Morning : but the great attractions 
of this room are the Beauties of the Court of Charles II. by 
Lely and Verelst. The greater part of these celebrated 
portraits were brought hither from the Gallery of Beauties 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 245 

at Windsor ; but we have not all here, and some of those 
which are here, are not by the same artists. The Duchess 
of Somerset here is not the one by Lely, but by Verelst ; here 
are neither the interesting Lacly Chesterfield, who was said 
to have poison given to her by her husband in the wine at 
the sacrament,* nor Miss Bagot, afterwards Countess of 
Falmouth. The Duchess of Portsmouth is not the one by 
Lely from Windsor, but the one by Gascar, which was pre- 
viously at Hampton Court. Most readers are familiar with 
the Beauties of Charles II.'s court, from the engravings in 
Mrs. Jameson's Memoirs of them ; but it must be recollected 
that several of those portraits are after originals, not from 
Windsor, but from other galleries, as the Duchess of Tyr- 
connel and the Duchess of Portsmouth from Althorpe, and 
the Duchess of Devonshire from Hard wicke. Amongst those 
which are here, there is great confusion. It is very singular 
that ladies who lived so near our own time, and who were 
so celebrated in their day, should have become as dubious 
in their identity as some of them were scandalous in their 
reputation. The Countess of Ossory here by Lely is the 
same person given by Mr. Jameson, on the authority of 
Walpole and Granger, as the Duchess of Somerset : so that 
we must here have two portraits of the same Duchess of 
Somerset under different names, or the Duchess of So- 
merset here by Verelst must be another Duchess, one of 
the three living at or near the same time. The portrait 

* So entirely was this story believed in the family, that Gertrude Sa- 
ville, daughter of the Marquis of Halifax, the wife of Lord Stanhope, Lord 
Chesterfield's son by his third wife, Lady Elizabeth Dormer, never dined 
at the table of her father-in-law, Lord Chesterfield, without having her 
servant out of livery standing behind her chair, who produced from his 
pocket a bottle of water, a bottle of wine, and a golden cup, out of which 
alone she was served, plainly intimating to the Earl that she would trust 
no drink or drinking-vessel from the hand of any one of his establish* 
ment. 

2V 



246 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

of Nell Gwynn here, though said to be by Lely, is not 
the one from which the plate in Mrs. Jameson's Me- 
moirs is engraved, said also at that time to be at Windsor. 
This portrait is unlike every portrait of Nell Gwynn which 
we have seen, and bears a far more striking resemblance to 
Mary of Modena, Queen of James II. ; as any one may see 
by looking at the two portraits of that queen, one a half- 
length in the Portrait Gallery, and the other a full-length 
over the door as you pass out of the Queen's Bed-room. 

The lady here styled Lady Whitmore is contended by 
Mrs. Jameson, again on the authority of Walpole and Gran- 
ger, and by comparison with a duplicate at Narford in the 
possession of Mr. Fountaine, to be no other than the 
Countess of Southesk. In the engraving in the Memoirs 
the lady has a look of innocence which is very little accord- 
ant with her real character ; but in the portrait here we 
may plainly see that the infamous character which the 
Countess of Southesk acquired could not be so startling and 
incredible a structure on the promise of that face, which, is 
lovely without assurance of any good principle. The lady 
again, here still called Lady Byron, as she always was 
called at Windsor, is by Mrs. Jameson styled Lady Bellasys. 
Surely here is enough of confusion and incertitude. 

With the exception, perhaps, of the Duchess of Cleve- 
land, the engravings in the Memoirs do not convey the full 
beauty of the originals; yet such is the power of fame and 
imagination, that most people are disappointed on first look- 
ing on these beauties. Splendid women indeed they are : 
but if Kneller's portraits want variety of attitude, those of 
Lely want variety of colouring and complexion. Sir Peter's 
flesh is in women and children too much alike. It has a 
delicacy and enamel-like transparency which is conferred 
on all. Not one of this series of ladies diners in complexion 
from the rest. They are all equally fair, equally clear; 
have all hands and arms of the same faultless uniformity, 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 247 

and nearly all dark hair and jet-black eyebrows. There 
must be a great want of truthfulness in the painter, unri- 
valled though he be in elegance and grace, or nature was at 
that period in a very monotonous humour. Having read 
also the glowing praises in the Memoirs of the beauty of 
Lady Byron and the Countess de Grammont, one is sur- 
prised to find the one anything but handsome, and the 
other very affected in her air, and somewhat insipid. The 
Duchess of Cleveland looks her real character ; a woman of 
uncommon beauty and of a spirit daring, impetuous and 
imperious. Lady Denham, Lady Rochester, the Duchess 
of Richmond, and Mrs. Middleton (here styled Lady Mid- 
dleton), are extremely beautiful ; but there are no two 
countenances more interesting than those of Mrs. Nott and 
Mrs. Lawson. The portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth 
by Gascar is vulgar in expression and destitute of that beauty 
which Louise de Querouaille must have possessed, and 
which Lely has conferred on her. Was Lely insensible to 
the beauty of the female form, exquisitely sensible as he 
was of the divinity of the female face ? — for almost all his 
full-lengths of ladies have their figure disguised by heaps of 
loose draperies, so that we have in reality, after all, seldom 
anything in his paintings of ladies but busts. 

The Portraits altogether in this room, as they stand in 
their present nomenclature, are — Anne, Duchess of York ; 
Lady Byron ; Princess Mary as Diana ; Queen Catherine ; 
Mrs. Knott ; Duchess of Portsmouth ; Duchess of Richmond 
(La belle Stuart) ; Nell Gwynn ; Countess of Rochester ; 
Duchess of Somerset ; Mrs. Lawson ; Countess of Northum- 
berland ; Lady Denham ; Countess of Sunderland ; Coun- 
tess de Grammont ; Duchess of Cleveland ; Countess of 
Ossory ; Lady Whitmore. 

Having quitted this constellation of beauty, we must now 
pass hastily on through the three small apartments, — the 
King's Dressing-room, the King's Writing-Closet, and Queen 



248 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

Mary's Closet, which, however, are filled with paintings, 
many of them of great merit and curiosity ; particularly a 
Magdalen's head by Sasso Ferrato ; Villiers, Duke of Buck- 
ingham, and family, by Honthorst (curious) ; Judith with 
the head of Holofernes, by Guido ; Prince Rupert, when a 
boy (curious) ; Singing by candlelight, by Honthorst ; Duke 
of Gloucester, a boy, by Lely, in his favourite style of a 
young sandaled hunter, with his hunting-pole on his shoul- 
der ; an old man's head, by Bassano ; and a laughing boy, 
by F. Hals. 

We then enter into what is called Her Majesty's Gallery, 
— a vast room completely filled with historical pieces and 
portraits, which of themselves would require a volume — and 
a most interesting volume it would be — to describe them 
in detail, with all their associations. We can but take 
the merest glance at the multitude of objects presented to 
us. What is as conspicuous and curious as anything in 
the gallery is a series of large paintings said to be by Hol- 
bein, representing the exploits of Henry VIII. in France. 
They are curious, as being so out of the ordinary track of 
Holbein ; they are not less so from their disregard of all per- 
spective ; and they are most of all curious as being full of 
actual portraits of the persons introduced, as well as of the 
actual general representation of the scenes, these at the time 
of their execution, being familiar to the minds of abundance 
of the very actors as well as spectators. These are Henry 
VIII. embarking from Dover; the meeting of Henry and 
Francis I. on the field of Cloth of Gold ; the meeting of 
Henry and the emperor Maximilian ; and besides these 
there are of a similar character, the battle of Pavia, and the 
battle of Spurs. 

This gallery is rich in the works of Holbein, — including 
several of Henry VIII., of Elizabeth, one of Francis I. of 
France, two of Erasmus, Holbein by himself, and also his 
father and mother. We have Elizabeth as a child, and as 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 249 

a young girl, by him ; to which are added, Elizabeth in 
middle age, by Zucchero ; and in old age, said to be the 
very last portrait of her, by Mark Garrard. In none of 
these do we recognize any of that beauty which her flat- 
tering courtiers assured her in speech and song that she pos- 
sessed ; nor, what is more surprising, do we perceive any 
striking evidence of that masterly mind which she certainly 
possessed. The portrait in old age is one of the most me- 
lancholy things imaginable ; it represents, in fact, one of the 
most haggish and bedizened old beldames that can be con- 
ceived, and is an astonishing proof of that self-delusion in a 
strong mind, the effect of the most fulsome court flattery, 
which could induce her thus to exhibit herself to all posterity 
in the physical ruin of senility, and the paltry adornment of 
the most absurd vanity. It is only by looking on this ghastly 
spectacle, and recollecting the outrageous compliments of 
Sir Walter Raleigh to this old lady, that we can convince 
ourselves of the depth to which the adulation of courtiers 
and the credulity of crowned heads can go. 

Here are numbers of portraits of high historic interest of 
those times, too, by other artists, as Mabuse, Janet, Janssen, 
L. de Heere, Cornelizs, by Sir A. More. By the latter artist 
the portrait of a lady, hanging next to one of Mary I. when 
a child, by Holbein, is most natural, and exquisitely painted. 
Amongst the portraits of old statesmen we see the Earl of 
Nottingham, Earl of Leicester, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir 
Nicolas Bacon, Sir Peter Carew, and Sir Henry Guildford. 
There is a very characteristic portrait of Henry VIII. as a 
child; and another picture of a stout child in a dove-coloured 
silk frock, and with a white feather in its cap, which was 
formerly labelled as Henry VIII., and can be the childhood 
of nobody else. The child is there certainly " the father of 
the man." One of the most admirable pictures in the whole 
gallery, however, is that of the Jester of Henry VIII., per- 
haps the very man presented to him by Wolsey in his dis- 



250 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

grace. The jester's face is seen looking through a casement 
window, and every feature of his face, nay, the very crook 
of his forefinger, as it is laid on the lead of the window, 
laughs, and is alive with merriment. One is surprised, after 
the unusually hard style of Holbein, to find here such free- 
dom, such softness, and round richness of expression.* 

Amongst the multitudinous subjects that catch the eye as 
you proceed, perhaps the following have the greatest at- 
tractions : Lord Darnley, whom one looks at to wonder 
what Mary Stuart could have seen in his empty plain face 
.to charm her j the. Admirable Crichton, worthy of the sub- 
ject ; a portrait of R. Walker the painter, by himself — a 
most spirited and intellectual head, worthy of a painter or 
a poet ; Cleopatra bitten by the Asp, by Caracci ; a Hermit, 
by Slingeland ; Youth and Age, by Denner ; Venus and 
Adonis, by Gennari ; St. Catherine reading, by Correggio ; 
Moses striking the Rock, by Salvator Rosa ; the Marquis 
del Guasto and Page, by Titian ; Nymphs and Satyrs, by 
N. Poussin ; a saint's head, by G. Dow ; Lucretia, by 
Titian ; a Jewish Rabbi, by Rembrandt ; a Dutch lady, by 
Rembrandt ; and a boy paring fruit, by Murillo. Between 
the windows, and in a light where they are seldom seen, 
are twelve sunny and ethereal figures of the Grecian deities, 
by Ricci. 

We have still to pass through no less than eight rooms 
crowded with paintings, many of them by the best masters, 
before we arrive at the Gallery of the Cartoons, which it 
is impossible within the limits of this article to notice. The 
Queen's Bedchamber, Avhere yet stands the rich state bed 
of Queen Ann, has its ceiling painted by Sir James Thorn- 

* If the Jester is provocative of mirth, so were the remarks of a person 
who, on one occasion, volunteered his ciceroneship. Pointing to "Diana 
and Actason," " That," said he, " is Diana enacting ;" and in this gallery 
— "Here," he said, "is Henry VIII.," and pointing to the Jester — 
" there he is in a gesture." 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 251 

hill, representing Aurora rising out of the sea, and its walls 
adorned by the pencils of Honthorst, Parmegiano, Claude, 
Guido, Michael Angelo, Giorgione, Titian, and others. The 
Queen's Drawing-room, with a painted ceiling by Verrio, 
Queen Ann occupying the centre in the character of Justice, 
is entirely appropriated to the works of Benjamin West, — 
full-lengths of the family of his great patron George III., 
besides several historical subjects, the finest of which are, — 
the Oath of Hannibal ; Peter denying Christ ; the Depart- 
ure of Regulus ; and the Death of General Wolfe. 

The Queen's Audience Chamber, besides the state bed 
of William III., has a multitude of paintings, principally 
by Kneller, Mytens, Spagnoletto, Schiavone, Holbein, West, 
Ricci, P. Veronese, Julio Romano, etc. The Public Dining- 
room contains models of Buckingham Palace, and of palaces 
intended to have been raised in Richmond Gardens and 
Hyde Park ; the large old water-colour paintings ; the 
Triumphs of Julius Caesar, and several good paintings, 
amongst which Duns Scotus, by Spagnoletto, rivets the 
attention by its stern severity. We pass through the Queen's 
Private Chapel ; the Private Dining-room ; the King's 
Private Dressing-room, and George II.'s Private Chamber, 
and enter the Gallery of the Cartoons of Raffaelle. 

These celebrated and masterly works, it is well known, 
are seven in number — namely : the Death of Ananias ; 
Elymas the Sorcerer, struck blind by St. Paul ; Peter and 
John at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple ; the Miracu- 
lous Draught of Fishes ; Paul and Barnabas at Lystra ; 
Paul Preaching at Athens ; Christ's Charge to Peter. 

So much has been written about these noble drawings, 
and so well are their character and subjects known, through 
abundant comment and by engravings, that I shall confine 
myself to a few matter-of-fact remarks regarding them. No 
comment and no engravings can convey an adequate idea 
of their beauty and sublimity. They must be seen, and not 



252 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

only seen, but studied, and that repeatedly and long, before 
their whole force and perfection can be felt. The first view 
of them generally disappoints. In such enthusiastic terms 
have all been accustomed to hear them spoken of, or writ- 
ten of, that they come prepared to expect an instant burst 
of splendour of colours and startling magnificence of objects, 
that do not exist in part, and in part are not at once recog- 
nised. The colours, by exposure to damps, to the injuries 
of ignorant neglect, and the silent action of years, are in a 
great degree dimmed and faded ; so that, coming to them 
from the rich colouring of oil paintings, with heated imagi- 
nations, and beholding them in the sober light of this gal- 
lery, they have even a dingy aspect ; and we have fre- 
quently witnessed the first disappointed wonder of visitants 
of taste. But it requires you to fix your eye upon them 
but for a short period, before they begin to fill you with 
awe and surprise. You become speedily sensible of their 
ample size, and the admirable proportions of figure in each 
splendid group ; of the distinctive character of each separate 
scene, and of each individual in it ; of the strong and life- 
like expression in every form, both of physical power or 
weakness ; and of every passion, sentiment, and feeling, in 
each different countenance. You feel that the perfection of 
art has placed before you some of the most marvellous per- 
sons and events in the human history in all the truth of 
nature. These grand assemblages of sainted men momently 
grow on your eye and your mind ; they become solemn 
and sublime visions ; — and you soon forget that you are 
merely gazing upon sheets of paper that were prepared for 
the weavers of Arras ; and seem to be admitted, by the 
retrospective power of a sacred enthusiasm, to behold the 
presence of Christ and the deeds and faith of his greatest 
disciples on the hallowed ground of their occurrence. 

The reader knows that these Cartoons were executed by 
Raffaelle during the last two years of his life, when he was 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 053 

thirty-six and thirty-seven years of age, at the command of 
Pope Leo X., as patterns for tapestry to adorn the papal 
chapel. They are supposed to have been originally twelve 
in number, seven of which are here ; and four others, Pyne, 
in his." History of the Royal Residences," states to be also 
in this country. The Vision of Ezekiel and a Holy Family, 
at Brought on, formerly the seat of the Duke of Montagu ; 
a Holy Family, at the seat of the late Duke of Beaufort; 
and the centre, or principal part of a Cartoon — The Mas- 
sacre of the Innocents, in possession of Mr. Prince Hoare. 
They are called Cartoons, from being merely on paper. On 
being delivered to the weavers at Arras, they proceeded to 
cut them into six or seven slips each, in order to work more 
readily from them. The assassination of the Pope, as it 
prevented the tapestries being placed in the chapel for 
which they were intended, also left them unpaid for, and 
the Cartoons were detained by the weavers at Arras for the 
debt. Here they lay for about a century, it is said, in a 
cellar. They were then purchased for James I. of England, 
or, as is said by others, for Charles I., at the suggestion of 
Rubens. Scarcely were they arrived in this country, when 
our civil commotions threw them into danger. They were 
sold during the Commonwealth for 300/. ; but by some 
means became overlooked, and lay for another century, till 
discovered at Hampton Court in William III.'s reign. They 
were afterwards conveyed to Windsor ; they have been lent 
to the Royal Academicians ; and after all these changes and 
perils were restored to Hampton Court by George III., who 
had them placed in their present frames at a cost of 500/. 
They have been copied by Sir James Thornhill of their full 
size, and by Charles Jervas and Goupy in small. And vari- 
ous engravings have been made from them, as by Gribbelin, 
Dorigny, Holloway, Fitler, and Burnet. 

A short time ago a violent cry was raised in the London 
journals for the removal of these splendid works of art to 

22 



254 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

the metropolis. It was curious to see some of the most 
zealous of these journalists menacing them with destruction, 
both from fire and water. They were represented as per- 
ishing from damp in a rotting and neglected old palace ; and 
the palace as in danger of being burnt down. Every one, 
after this, must be surprised to find the palace a firm and 
compact brick building, not very liable, either from material 
or situation, to fire, and remarkably dry, in excellent preser- 
vation, and kept in the neatest order. The reasons urged 
would have been equally good for stripping the palace of 
the Beauties, and of any other valuable painting. But the 
zealous advocates for their removal forgot that London has 
no place fit to receive them, either in point of size or in 
means of protecting them from the effects of a London 
atmosphere. Here they are in a pure air, and there is no 
reason to believe that they have suffered materially since 
they have been finally deposited in this gallery ; and the 
facility of a railroad has made them nearly as accessible to 
all persons in the metropolis, as if they were in some part 
of the great Babel itself; while 32,000 visiters, in one month, 
prove they offer an additional inducement to a country trip. 
Were a new gallery built for their reception, it should be 
much larger than the present one, in fact, nearly as wide as 
this is long. In this, we are too near all those hung on the 
side of the gallery, as by looking on either of those at the 
ends from the centre of the gallery you instantly perceive. 
It is only there that you see them in full strength of their 
relief, and comprehend the beauty of the whole group. 

Here we must quit the presence of these noblest of the con- 
ceptions of the divine Raffaelle, — rejoicing, however, that 
they are now free to our contemplation as the very land- 
scape around them, and that we can, at our pleasilre, walk 
into this fine old palace, linger before these sacred creations 
at our will, and return to them again and again. 

Quitting them, we shall now hastily quit the palace of 



VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 255 

Hampton Court; for though there is a small room ad- 
joining, containing Cassanova's drawing of Raffaelle's 
celebrated picture of the Transfiguration, and several other 
interesting paintings ; and yet another long Portrait Gallery, 
filled from end to end with the forms and faces of celebrated 
persons by celebrated artists, we can but gaze and pass on. 
And yet who would not delight to have that one room to 
himself, to haunt day after day, and to ponder over the 
features and costumes of Locke, Newton, Sheridan, Boyle, 
Charles XII. of Sweden, Caroline, the Queen of George II., 
made interesting to all the world by the author of Waverley, 
in the interview of Jeannie Deans ? Who would not pass a 
moment before even the little Geoffrey Hudson, and think 
of all that diminutive knight's wrath, his duel, and his ad- 
venture in the pie ? Lord Falkland's fine and characteristic 
face is a sight worth a long hour's walk on a winter's 
morning ; and the Earl of Surrey, flaming in his scarlet 
dress, scarlet from head to foot, — who would not stop and 
pay homage to the memory of his bravery, his poetry and 
his Geraldine ? But there are Rosamond Clifford and Jane 
Shore. Lely had not brought the Graces into England in 
their day, and therefore, instead of those wondrous beauties 
which we expect them, we find them — ghosts. 

Here, too, is another portrait of Queen Elizabeth, a full- 
length by Zucchero, where " stout Queen Bess" is not in 
one of her masculine moods of laconic command — when 
she looked " every inch a queen" — but in a most melan- 
choly and romantic one indeed. She is clad in a sort of 
Armenian dress — a loose figured robe, without shape, 
without sleeves, and trimmed with fur ; a sort of high cap, 
and eastern slippers. She is represented in a wood, with a 
stag near her ; and on a tree are cut, one below the other, 
after the fashion of the old romances, the following sen- 
tences: — Injusti justa querela. — Me a sic mihi. — 
Dolor est medicina dolori. And at the foot of the tree, 



256 VISIT TO HAMPTON COURT. 

on a scroll, these verses, supposed to be of the royal manu- 
facture : 

The restless swallow fits my restlesse mind, 
In still revivinge, still renewinge wrongs ; 
Her just complaints of cruelty unkinde 
Are all the musique that my life prolonges. 
With pensive thoughts my weeping stag I crown, 
Whose melancholy teares my cares expresse ; 
His tears in sylence, and my sighes unknowne 
Are all the physicke that my harmes redresse. 
My onley hopes was in this goodly tree, 
Which I did plant in love, bring up in care 
But all in vaine, for now to late I see 
The shales be mine, the kernels others are 
My musique may be plaintes, my musique teares, 
If this be all the fruite my love-tree beares. 

We step through the door of which Jane Shore's spectral 
visage is hung ; and lo ! we are on the Queen's Staircase, 
and descend once more to the courts of Wolsey. Long as 
we have lingered in this old palace, we have had but a 
glimpse of it. Its antiquities, its pleasantness, and its host 
of paintings, cannot be comprehended in a Visit; they 
require a volume ; and a most delicious volume that would 
be, which should take us leisurely through the whole, giving 
us the spirit and the history, in a hearty and congenial tone, 
of its towers and gardens, and all the renowned persons who 
have figured in its courts, or whose limned shapes now 
figure on its walls. 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

WARWICKSHIRE. 

Compton-Winyates is a curious old house belonging to 
the Marquis of Northampton, and gives the title of Lord 
Compton to his eldest son. It lies in the range of hills of 
which Edge-Hill forms a part, and is about four miles from 
Edge-Hill, and two from the village of Brailes. Perhaps 
there is no house in the kingdom which is located in a more 
hidden and out-of-the- world situation. It stands in a deep 
hollow of this range of hills, surrounded by woods and 
ponds. It is often called Compton-in-the-Hole, from its 
singular site ; and a man of whom I asked the way to it, 
said, " You never seed a house in sich a hole." 

In endeavouring to find it, I passed from Edge-Hill, down 
the vale of the Red Horse, leaving the Red Horse itself on 
my left hand;* passing through the obscure village of 
Church-Tysoe, and there made inquiries. So little even did 
the villagers, who were perhaps not more than a mile from 
it, seem to know it, that one had to go and inquire of 
another the way to it. I was at last informed that there 
was a narrow lane which led to it ; but that it was so cir- 
cuitous, I had better take a footpath leading over a hill 
which was in view, and to keep a mill which stood on its 

* This is the rude figure of a horse cut in the turf of the hill side, 
showing the red marie of the hill, most probahly in commemoration of 
some ancient battle, as the White Horse in the vale of the same name in 
Berkshire. 

22* 



258 VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

summit to my right. This is the mill of Over-Tysoe, which 
is laid down in the map of Kineton hundred, in the Coventry 
edition of Sir William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwick- 
shire, from a survey in 1725 ; so that the mill, or a mill, has 
stood there for one hundred and fourteen years at least. I 
went on towards it, but soon found the footpath fade away 
to nothing, and I therefore ascended to this ancient mill to 
inquire there. When within a short distance of this mill I 
observed a stile to my left, and on reaching it beheld, to my 
great satisfaction, this old house of Compton-Winyates lying 
doAvn in the solitary and most secluded valley below me. 

I know not how to describe the feeling which came over 
me at the sight of it. There was something so still — so 
dreamlike — so unlike any ancient hill which I had ever seen, 
that I stood and gazed on it in a sort of wandering reverie. 
It seemed as if I had suddenly come upon an enchanted re- 
gion, or had got a peep at the castle of Avalon, where King 
Arthur and Ogeir the Paladin are said still to abide with 
the fairy Morgana, awaiting the time when they shall re- 
turn to the realms of France and England, to restore them 
to their ancient chivalrous honour. The words of Bishop 
Percy's ballad of the hermit of Warkworth came vividly 
into my mind. 

Behind yon hill so steep and high, 

Down in the lowly glen, 
There stands a castle fair and strong, 

Far from the abode of men. 

Far indeed from the abodes of men did it seem, though I 
had so recently passed through the village of Tysoe, — but 
it was far from the stir of the present men of cities and 
steam-engines. It was not of the fashion of these times. 
There stood, in its perfect calm, that dark-red old mansion, 
with all its gables, towers, and twisted chimneys ; with its 
one solitary smoke ascending above its roof, and around it 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 259 

neither other habitation nor any visible object or sound of 
life. Its hills and woods seemed to shut it into a perpetual 
loneliness : and the gleam of still waters came dimly here 
and there through the openings amongst overhanging 
boughs. 

I hastened down into the valley, and plunged into the 
woody shades. I passed the head of those nearly-hidden 
ponds, and as I approached the house, its utter solitude be- 
came more and more sensibly felt. It was now the moated 
grange of Tennyson's poetry. You might quite expect to 
see Mariana watching at one of the windows. The moat 
was not as most old moats now are, dry and become a green 
hollow, but full of water, as if still necessary for defence. 
As you drew near, a little church revealed itself under the 
trees on your right hand, while a garden on your left, lead- 
ing down to the house, retained the style in which it had 
been first laid out some centuries ago. There was the little 
footpath by which the family came to church, running along 
amid evergreens cut into a variety of shapes, not only pea- 
cocks and such things, but cut also into such figures as cor- 
responded with the figures of the beds in which they grew, 
— cubes, rhomboids, triangles of different degrees of acute- 
ness. 

To reach the great entrance of the house, it was necessary 
to hold round some offices to the left, and then I came into 
the front of the old court. Here a scene of ruin presented 
itself. The buildings on one side of the court-yard were 
nearly pulled down ; on the other they consisted of a range 
of stables, coach-houses, etc., in a state of great dilapidation. 
This front, which is the south, is very venerable. It con- 
tains an old projecting gateway leading to the inner court, 
and various gables, towers, and twisted chimneys. Over 
the gateway are the royal arms, supported by a griffin and 
a dog, and surmounted by the crown royal. The spandrel 
of the porch surrounding the arms in form of a tablet, and 



260 VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

the whole of the moulding of the spandrel are ornamented 
with quaint animals, as lizards, mice, dogs, etc. In the cor- 
ners between the elliptic arch and the spandrel, are embla- 
zoned a portcullis on one side, and castle on the other, with 
the rose between them and the point of the arch ; and, on 
each side of the spandrel, in the brick wall, is again embla- 
zoned in stone, the rose surmounted by the crown. These 
are indications of that loyalty of the Comptons and of that 
royal favour of which we shall speak anon. 

Passing through this gateway, you find yourself in the 
square court round which the house is built. The great 
hall is opposite to you on the right. You are struck with 
its grand bay-window, with its turreted head, and orna- 
mented frieze. The old hall is lofty, and retains the style 
and features of the feudal age. In its oaken roof may yet 
be seen traces of the aperture whence the smoke made its 
escape from the fire in the centre of the floor. It has its 
old music-gallery, and the screen beneath it is curiously 
carved with fine tracery of leaves, amongst which the thistle 
is conspicuous. In the centre of the screen is a cross-panel, 
with a rude escutcheon of the ancient arms of the Comptons. 
The chief bearings are meant to represent a lion passant 
guardant between three helmets, the present arms of the 
Northampton family. There is also a battle scene upon 
this panel, with the most rude and grotesque figures of 
knights on horseback, fighting, others falling, others lying 
slain — all sketched with a grace that would match some 
of the Egyptian tombs, and a perspective that would delight 
a Chinese. Some of the slain men are tumbling up hill, and 
others are miraculously lying in the air, as if there were no 
such thing as specific gravity in the world. One wonders 
that even the carver could keep any gravity in himself. It 
is a performance in the very rudest style of art, and were 
not the thistle visible would be supposed to be very ancient. 
One might attribute it to some genius of design who flou- 



VISIT TO COMPTON WTNYATES. 261 

rished in this secluded region at the time of the erection of 
the screen, did not our old woodcuts of James I.'s time show 
us that the most eminent engravers of the realm then de- 
signed exactly in the same style. At all events it is a 
genuine curiosity ; and no doubt is intended to represent 
some battle with which the family was concerned, if we 
could but understand it. 

The hall, as the whole house indeed is, is stripped of its 
original furniture and decorations. The dai's is gone. The 
banners which waved in the smoky roof, wave there no 
longer ; and the arms and armour, trophies of hard-fought 
fields, which were wont to cover the walls, have vanished. 
One solitary black-jack of capacious dimensions, and a large 
pair of stag's antlers, alone remained. 

I was glad to see in the large bay-window a book lying 
for the reception of the names of visiters, for even this most 
retired mansion, by its peculiar style, and traditions belong- 
ing to it, has begun to draw the attention of the curious. 
The book was only introduced during the last summer, yet 
I found inscribed the names of 

Lord Glenelg. 

George Lucy, ^ 

Mrs. Lucy, ( of Charlecote. 

Rev. John Lucy, ) 

Dr. Buckland, of Oxford. 

Lord Nugent. 

As I proceeded through the house, I became sensible of 
its present condition. It is thoroughly stripped of furniture. 
It has not been inhabited for these ninety years, except the 
lodge in the gateway, and a portion of the east front, which 
is the residence of the bailiff. There is not a bench or table, 
not a picture or piece of tapestry left. The rooms are all 
empty, excepting one or two, moderately furnished for the 
use of the Marquis on any temporary visit in the shooting 



262 VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

season. Except in these few rooms, the walls are all 
naked, and what is worse, they appear at the latest period 
of the occupation of the house to have been papered in the 
then style. This paper has in most cases been stripped off; 
in some rooms entirely, in others by patches and fragments. 
In some few instances, perhaps a whole room has escaped 
the hands that have thus delighted to destroy ; but wherever 
that is the case, the paper is of the most ordinary and coarse 
kind, and in vast and rude patterns, as if it were from the 
very first manufactory, and therefore of the very rudest 
fashion. Altogether, as may be supposed, the place has a 
most forlorn air ; yet is by no means a ruin. The roof has 
been kept in repair, and the ceilings in general are in good 
condition, and many of them very beautiful ; and have evi- 
dently been cleaned at a recent period, so as to show their 
design and excellence. The ceilings are indeed amongst 
the most striking features of the place. They are in so su- 
perior a style that their quality evidently saved them, when 
the walls were modernized, from a similar fate, and now 
present a singular contrast. 

We noticed the royal arms and the roses emblazoned on 
the gateway; and the thistle on the screen in the hall. 
These ceilings everywhere display the same emblems, and 
point to the two great eras of royal favour. The ceilings are 
of stucco-work. In many of them appear massy escutcheons 
of the royal arms ; in others the portcullis and castle ; in 
others large roses and thistles ; and, again, the rose and the 
thistle united, not merely in one bouquet, but half a thistle 
and half a rose joined into one strange heraldic flower. 
The room called Henry VIII.'s room, has various embla- 
zonments of the royal arms in stained glass in the windows. 

All these armorial insignia, thistles, roses, and unions of 
thistle and rose, record the loyalty of the house in the reigns 
of Henry VIII. and James I., in which the Comptons re- 
ceived distinguished marks of the royal grace. 



, VISIT TO COMPTON-"VVIN YATES. 263 

There are other hints of the history of this house visible 
in it. There was no one at it who could give any account 
of it. The young woman who showed it, said she had not 
long been there, and knew nothing of it — but added the 
consoling intelligence that the old woman who had been 
there thirty years, and knew all about it, was dead. The 
steward was not at home ; and the house, stripped as it 
was, was obliged to speak for itself. In some respects it 
were to be wished that it had done it more intelligibly. 

In the tower overlooking the outer court there was a trap- 
door, and the ladder yet remaining below. On inquiring 
where that ladder led to, my guide told me that the soldiers 
used to hide themselves down there. What soldiers ? That 
was not in her books. We shall see that anon. 

Another indication of what had been going on here dur- 
ing the great political changes of England, was given by 
the fact that there are two chapels in the house. One is on 
the ground floor, still retaining on its walls the tables of the 
Decalogue and Psalms, showing that it had been used as a 
Protestant chapel in the later days. But in the roof we 
came to another chapel, which is called the Popish chapel. 
This had evidently been constructed as a place of secret wor- 
ship when Popery was become illegal, and could only be 
practised in the utmost privacy. It was therefore constructed 
in the roof by oaken frame-work fitted in between the tim- 
ber of the roof, and wainscot partitions, leaving behind them 
a space into which the worshippers, if surprised by their 
now Protestant masters, could disappear through different 
doors leading to two private staircases. Nothing could be 
more expressive of what had been going on here in troublous 
times, nor could more stimulate one's curiosity as to who 
were the actors in these affairs, but nothing more was to be 
learned on the spot. All living knowledge of these persons 
and transactions had passed away, and almost all living 
persons too. 



264 VISIT TO COMPTON-WIN YATES. 

In the lower chapel there, were, as I observed, signs of 
Protestant devotion, but there were also signs of Popish 
worship too of a more ancient date, or at least of that re- 
formed worship of Henry VIII.'s time, which was Popery 
scarcely a single degree removed. There was an open 
screen, which formed a sort of division between the outer 
part of the chapel where the servants and dependents sate, 
from the inner, which was occupied by the lord's family 
solely. Along the top of this screen ran, on each side of the 
centre division which formed the doorway, a long narrow 
panel by way of frieze, and upon these panels, on both 
sides of them, were carved scenes, no doubt intended to be 
religious, and evidently by t the same hand as that which 
adorned the screen beneath the music-gallery in the hall. 

On one panel appears a row of saints or kings, of a solemn 
stateliness and dignity, most primitively expressed, each 
holding a huge sword on his shoulder. On the fellow panel 
appears the Old Gentleman, and a very corpulent old gen- 
tleman too, with a stout pair of horns, standing or sitting 
in a very standing posture, and either fighting with a great 
saint or monk, or in the act of being exorcised by him ; to 
decide which, however, would perhaps require us to call 
up from the dead the genius who designed the piece. 
Probably, after all, it is intended to depict the contest of 
St. Michael and the old dragon. Whatever it be, around 
the saint or archangel, appear monster heads, haunting 
fiends, no doubt attempting to intimidate him, and behind 
him come riding up troops of people in very primitive, wide, 
short frocks, or surcoats, mounted on very odd horses, bear- 
ing a striking resemblance to large dogs with asses' ears, 
and behind each person is mounted an imp, looking very 
alert and triumphant. Some of those imps have monstrous 
long ears pricked up, others long ears hanging down to 
their middle, and others wearing fools' caps. 

These two panels are within the inner chapel, and thereby 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 265 

meant for the edification of the lord and his family. On 
the back, that is, facing the people, appear two other sub- 
jects, still more difficult to decipher. One is probably- 
meant for Christ on his way to the Crucifixion, for he is 
seen bearing his cross, and angels are crowning him. The 
other is perhaps the Ascension. There is seen a figure 
supported by two lower figures upon a cushion, or, perhaps, 
a cloud, and crowned by what are very likely meant for 
angels. In the group appears a stag with stupendous 
horns, at whose business there one cannot help wondering ; 
except that a stag is similarly introduced in some of the 
old Christmas carols. 

These singular carvings, as well as those on the screen 
of the music-gallery, have, in the course of modern im- 
provements, been all painted white. Perhaps, however, 
they are not the more indistinct for that, and are curious for 
their very rudeness of execution. One sees in them what 
our Catholic ancestors, both gentle and simple, used to 
puzzle and wonder over, during the rude ages when mys- 
teries and miracle-plays were in vogue, and the scenery and 
figures for them were got up by artists like him whose handi- 
works yet flourish here. 

Such are the appearances which present themselves to a 
stranger first going over this singular and solitary old house. 
Let us now call in the aid of history to throw as much light 
upon it as we can. 

The Comptons were a distinguished family in Warwick- 
shire from a period soon after the Conquest, From the 
reign of King John to the time of Henry VIII. they con- 
tinued living here, holding various offices of honour and 
responsibility under the crown. One of them accompanied 
Edward II. in his expedition into Wales. But Sir William 
Compton of the reign of Henry VIII. was the first to raise 
the family to a greater degree of honour. He was the first 
page to Henry when he was but a boy ; then successively 

23 



266 VLSYF TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

groom and chief gentleman of the bedchamber, and chan- 
cellor of Ireland. So greatly did he rise in the good graces 
of the king, that, says Dugdale, Henry " made him a special 
grant to himself and his heirs of an honourable augmenta- 
tion of his arms out of the said king's own royal ensigns 
and devices, viz., a lion passant guardant Or, and for his 
crest a demi-dragon erased Gules, within a coronet of gold, 
upon a Torse Argent and Vert." He was knighted, and 
led the rear-guard of the king's army at Terouenne, which 
was principally composed of the retinue of Richard Fox, 
Bishop of Winchester, and Wolsey, then the king's almoner. 
He joined, in the 16th of Henry VIII., the Marquis of 
Dorset, to assist the Earl of Surrey in his expedition 
towards Scotland against the Duke of Albany, and in the 
following year was appointed Bursarius Regis. 

It was this Sir William who built the present house. He 
was royal keeper of the park at Fulbrook, the same which 
afterwards came into the hands of Sir Thomas Lucy, and 
where Shakspeare invaded his deer. The castle of Ful- 
brook, Sir William Compton, by royal permission, pulled 
down, and with the brick principally constructed this house. 
There is a tradition that he had the chimneys, which were 
very curious, removed whole, and conveyed to Compton 
upon scaffolds framed for the purpose. They are certainly 
a set of fine old chimneys of various devices. 

" In the chapel within this house," says Sir William 
Dugdale, " was a costly window of rare workmanship, the 
Passion of our Saviour being therein very lively repre- 
sented ; and in the lower part thereof his own portraiture, 
as also that of his lady, both kneeling, in their surcoats of 
arms." Sir William enclosed a park here, and died of the 
sweating sickness in the 20th of Henry VIII., the king also 
being very ill of it at the time. In remembrance of the 
king's goodness to him, he bequeathed him " a little chest 
of ivory, whereof the lock was gilt, with a chess board 



VISIT TO COMPTOX-WINYATES. 267 

under the same, and a pair of tables upon it ; and all such 
jewels and treasures as were enclosed therein." He founded 
also two chantries at Compton for daily prayers " for the 
soul of the King, the Queen, and Lady Ann Hastings ; as 
also for the souls of himself, his wife, his ancestors, and all 
Christian souls." Notwithstanding which, Wolsey, to 
whom it does not appear that he had left anything, would 
not grant a probate of his will till he had fingered one 
thousand marks. His grandson Henry became Lord 
Compton in the reign of Elizabeth, and in the 16th of 
James I. his son William was created Earl of Northampton. 
The family had now risen to high rank. The Earl was also 
lieutenant of the county, knight of the garter, and president 
of the king's council in the marches of Wales ; and it was 
his fortune to bring by his marriage as much wealth into 
his house as he had brought honour into it. He wedded 
Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Sir John Spenser, 
alderman of London ; and there is that about this notable 
dame which it will be worth while to look a little more 
particularly at. 

Miss Spenser was the richest heiress of the time. Her 
father's wealth, supposed to be approaching to a million of 
money, was enormous even for a lord mayor of London at 
that day. So great was it, that a scheme had once been set 
on foot by the pirates of Dunkirk to carry him off, in order 
to extort a famous ransom. When Lord Compton came to 
a sudden and full discovery of the wealth which Sir John 
had left, it so overcame him that he became unsettled in his 
intellects for a considerable period. His lady, who seems 
to have been a woman of great spirit, and by no means 
foolishly unconscious of the magnificence of her dowry, and 
the consequence it justly conferred upon her, took the most 
likely means to recall his scattered senses. She addressed 
to him a letter, suggesting to him the mode of disposing of 
his affairs, which she concluded thus on her own behalf. 



268 VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

" My sweet life, Now I have declared to you my mind 
for the settling of your estate, I suppose that it were best for 
me to bethink and consider within myself what allowance 

were meetest for me I pray and beseech you to grant 

to me, your most kind and loving wife, the sum of 2600/. 
quarterly to be paid. Also I would, besides that allowance, 
have 600/. quarterly to be paid, for the performance of 
charitable works : and those things I would not, neither will 
be accountable for. Also, I will have three horses for my 
own saddle, that none shall dare to lend or borrow ; none 
lend but I, none borrow but you. Also, I would have two 
gentlewomen, lest one should be sick, or have some other 
let. Also, believe it, it is an undecent t?ring for a gentle- 
woman to stand mumping alone, when God hath blessed 
their lord and lady with a great estate. Also, when I ride 
a-hunting,or a-hawking, or travel from one house to another, 
I will have them attending ; so, for either of those said 
women, I must, and will have for either of them a horse. 
Also, I will have six or eight gentlemen ; and I will have 
my two coaches, one lined with velvet for myself, with four 
very fair horses; and a coach for my women, lined with cloth 
and laced with gold, or otherwise with scarlet and laced 
with silver, with four good horses. Also, I will have two 
coachmen ; one for my own coach, the other for my women. 
Also, at any time when I travel, I will be allowed not only 
caroches and spare horses, for me and my women, I will 
have such carnages as be fitting for all, orderly, not pest- 
ering my things with my women's, nor theirs with their 
chamber-maids, nor theirs with wash-maids. Also, for 
laundresses, when I travel, I will have them sent away 
before, with the carriages, to see all safe. And the cham- 
ber-maids I will have go before, that the chamber may be 
ready, sweet and clean. Also, that it is undecent for me to 
crowd up myself with my gentleman-usher in my coach, I 
will have him to have a convenient horse to attend me, 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WIN YATES. 269 

either in city or country. And I must have two footmen. 
And my desire is, that you defray all the charges for me. 
And for myself, besides my yearly allowance, I would have 
twenty gowns of apparel ; six of them excellent good ones, 
eight of them for the country, and six other of them very 
excellent good ones. Also, I would have to put in my 
purse 2000/. and 200/., and so, you to pay my debts. Also, 
I would have 6000/. to buy me jewels, and 4000/. to buy 
me a pearl chain. Now, seeing I have been, and am so 
reasonable unto you, I pray you do find my children ap- 
parel, and their schooling, and all my servants, men and 
women, their wages. Also I will have all my houses fur- 
nished, and my lodging chambers to be suited with all such 
furniture as is fit : as beds, stools, chairs, suitable cushions, 
carpets, silver warming-pans, cupboards of plate, fair hang- 
ings, and such-like. So for my drawing chamber in all 
houses, I will have them delicately furnished, both with 
hangings, couch, canopy, glass, carpet, chairs, cushions, and 
all things thereunto belonging. Also, my desire is, that 
you would pay your debts, build up Ashby-house and 
purchase lands, and lend no money, as you love God, to 
my Lord-chamberlain, who would have all, perhaps your 
life, from you 

" So, now that I have declared to you what I would 
have, and what it is that I would not have, I pray you, 
when you be an earl, to allow me 2000/. more than I now 
desire, and double attendance."* 

Surely nothing could act as a more perfect sedative to 
the excited mind of the astonished nobleman than this admi- 
rable letter. Nothing could be more calculated to reduce 
him to soberness o f thought. It showed him that if his 
wife's fortune was magnificent, she had a right magnificent 
mind and notion of spending it. There is something irre- 
sistibly pleasant in her " I must and will." Her 2600/. to 

* Harleian MSS. 
23* 



270 VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

be paid quarterly, and 600/. quarterly for charities; and 
6000/. for jewels, and. 4000/. for a pearl chain ; and 2000/. 
and 200/. to furnish her purse with at starting ; and all her 
very excellent gowns; and gentlewomen, and gentlemen, 
and caroches and couches, and saddle horses, and all her 
houses richly furnished ; and all her debts paid, and all her 
servants wages into the bargain ; " and so you to defray all 
charges for me :" and then when he became an earl, 2000/* 
more and double attendance ! No wonder that his lordship 
recovered his senses ; for there was a most comfortable 
prospect of expenditure chalked out for him. And the 
warning not to lend any money to my lord-chamberlain — - 
how good it is. ! she was a right stately, gorgeous, and 
goodly dame, worthy to be the daughter of the lord mayor 
of London, and first Countess of Northampton of that line ! 
Who does not see her coming in her velvet-lined coach, 
with her gentleman-usher riding by her coach-door ; and 
her waiting-gentlewomen in their coach lined with cloth 
and gold lace, or scarlet and silver lace ; and all her caval- 
cade of attendants on horseback, and her led horses that 
" nobody shall lend but me, and nobody borrow but you ;" 
and all her chambermaids and laundresses gone before with 
the stores of household linen, and her " very excellent good 
gowns" in their separate packages and carriages-; — 
" orderly, not pestering my things with my women's 
things, nor theirs with the wash-maids." What a stir 
would be created in these quiet villages as the great Coun- 
tess passed through — what an idea must the villagers 
have had of a lord mayor of London's daughter. And 
what a clatter, and a racket, and a bustle, must there have 
been about this now silent old mansion when the great 
lady and her company swept into the court. Who does not 
see her ascend the easy oaken stairs, with a stately grace, 
to see whether her women have made the chambers all 
" ready, sweet, and clean." 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 271 

She was clearly a grand and prudent dame, fit to have a 
princely fortune ; many houses ; to travel from one to an- 
other in becoming state ; and to see at once the poor made 
glad out of her noble reservation for them, and that his 
lordship built up his decayed houses, paid his debts, and 
purchased more land. I could not walk about the now 
deserted chambers without thinking with what a noble 
presence she once presided, and how indignant she would 
feel, could she behold them now ; deserted and forlorn. 

The name of this splendid lady is retained in that of the 
present worthy and enlightened Marquis, who is Spenser 
Joshua Alwyne Compton ; and who married Margaret Cle- 
phane, the friend of Sir Walter Scott. 

The son of this first Earl of Northampton and of this 
great heiress was Spenser Compton, commonly called the 
loyal Earl of Northampton, for his attachment to the cause 
of Charles I., and his aetive support of his interest in that 
country in opposition to Lord Broke, who exerted himself 
strenuously for the Parliament. The loyalty of the Earl 
was the more conspicuous, from the general disaffection to 
the king which prevailed throughout that part of the coun- 
try, and to, such a degree that the smiths used to hide them- 
selves that they might not be compelled to shoe the 
horses of the royalists. The Earl was killed in the battle 
of Hopton Heath, and five years afterwards his house 
at Compton-Winyates was garrisoned by the Parliament 
army. 

We have thus sufficient facts to explain most of the appear- 
ances which struck us in going through the house. The 
roses and thistles, the crowns and royal arms, point to. the 
favours of Henry VIII. and James I. Henry is said to have 
slept in the room, when he visited Sir William Compton 
here, which is still called Henry the VIII. 's room, and has 
his arms emblazoned in the window. James elevated the 
family to an earldom, and the thistle still proclaims the 



272 VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 

grateful story. The second earl died in battle for James's 
son, and his house became the garrison of his enemies. 
During the five years between the earl's death and that 
event, how many skirmishes and alarms about this old 
house might suggest the trap-door and the ladder : or the 
Parliament troops might lodge in that extensive roof, or 
keep the stores there. This is certain, that they demolished 
the " costly window of rare workmanship" in the chapel, 
with the " very lively representation of our Saviour," and 
the portraits of Sir William and his lady kneeling, in their 
surcoat of arms. They also destroyed the church just by. 
a As for the fabric thereof," says Sir William, " it is now 
totally reduced to rubbish, having been demolished in an. 
1 646, when Compton-House was garrisoned by the Parlia- 
ment forces : the monuments therein, of Sir William Comp- 
ton and his lady, with that of Henry Lord Compton, their 
grandson, which were very beautiful and stately, being then 
utterly rased and knocked in pieces ; so that instead of them, 
which I was not so happy as to take notice of while they 
stood, I shall here, to the memory of that worthy person 
(Sir William Compton) and honour of the family, insert the 
portraitures of himself, his lady, and children, as they still 
remain (having been set up in his time) in the Chapel of 
Baliol College in Oxford." 

The church was rebuilt at the Restoration, and contains 
some monuments of the family since. 

One only circumstance, which is mysterious, is the exist- 
ence of the Popish chapel in the roof. The family was 
always so loyal and so Protestant, that the existence of 
such a place in the house is not a little curious. Henry 
Compton, the youngest of the six sons left by the loyal 
Earl, became bishop of London, and so distinguished him- 
self as the opponent of all schemes for the restoration of 
Popery, that James II. suspended him ; and only restored 
him on the approach of the Prince of Orange. This pre- 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 273 

late was active in effecting the Revolution, and settling the 
government of King William. 

The present Marquis, struck with these facts, is inclined 
to doubt whether this ever was a Popish chapel at all ; yet 
he confesses that a curiously carved door, which he removed 
from a crypt or confessional in it, lately to Ashby Castle, 
looks suspicious. In fact, the situation, — in the roof, the 
construction, with its private closets and staircases, so ex- 
actly on the principle of the secret chapels of the recusants, 
and the established tradition, all seem to reveal a secret 
which was no doubt well kept, when it was of the greatest 
consequence — that some one of this highly loyal and Pro- 
testant family, the lord, or perhaps his lady, was of the 
ancient faith, and here practised its rites in the profoundest 
secresy. And, indeed, rare must have been the instances 
in which the subtlest skill and contrivance could prevent 
the fact of recusancy transpiring, when the richest rewards 
were offered by government to espionage. In Rushworth 
we find a list of no less than seven-and-thirty knights and 
baronets, besides the Earl of Rutland, Viscount Dunbar, 
William Lord Evre, Lord St. John, and Lord Scroop, as 
well as a long catalogue of esquires, which was presented 
by the servile parliament of James I. as of persons whom 
it was desirable to remove from the offices of lords lieute- 
nant, magistrates, etc., as Popish recusants, and of many of 
these the simple offence was that their wives, and in some 
instances, even their children, did not go to church ! In 
the third year of Charles I., we find the Commons again 
congratulating the Crown that it had driven all " the Pa- 
pists and Jesuits, enemies of church and state, to lurk in 
dark corners like the sons of darkness ;" and this was fol- 
lowed by a proclamation, ordering a levy upon their estates 
of two-thirds of their value, and for all priests and Jesuits 
not already banished, to be confined in the Castle of 
Wisbeach. 



274 VISIT TO COMPTON-WIN YATES. 

The eastern part of the house, which we have not yet 
mentioned, appears to have been the side on which lay the 
pleasaunce. The boundaries of its walls are yet visible, 
and the basin of a fountain, now dry. From the pleasaunce 
the hills rise steeply, scattered with trees ; and in a glen to 
the left are other old ponds, now choked up with mud and 
weeds, and wild with flags and the black spear-heads of 
the tall club-rush. 

Of the seclusion and desertion of this old " moated grange" 
some idea maybe formed from this fact: — I asked the 
woman which was the way from the house to Brailes, the 
next village on my route. She replied, she " really could 
not well direct me — for there once had been a road, but 
it was now grown up ; but I must go directly out at the 
front gate, through the belt of wood opposite, and hold 
across the common, as well as I could, till I saw the tower 
of Brailes." 

In following these encouraging directions to the best of 
my ability, I speedily found myself on a wild hilly moor- 
land to the south-west of the house, rough with furze, old 
ant-hills of a yard in height and width, and bogs full of 
sedge, that would have delighted the eye of Bewick. But 
I could discern no trace of a path, either to Brailes or any 
other Christian village. I looked round in silence, and 
above me on a hill to the left I beheld an old gray pyramid 
of stone, which had once boasted a vane on its summit, but 
now exhibited only its iron rod, ruefully leaning as if to 
look down after its old companions — the weathercock and 
initials of the four quarters of the heavens. I ascended to 
this object, in hope that it was meant to mark the site of a 
prospect into some inhabited country. I walked round it 
to discern some inscription, explaining the cause of its 
erection, or some entrance into it ; but there was neither 
entrance nor inscription. It was as mysterious a gray and 
ancient pyramid as any one could desire. Though not 



VISIT TO COMPTON-WINYATES. 275 

more, perhaps, than a furlong from the house, I turned and 
saw that the house was already hidden in its deep combe, 
and shrouded by its wooded hills, and I was sensibly im- 
pressed with the utter loneliness and silence of the scene. 
The caw of a rook, or the plaintive bleat of a sheep on the 
moor, were the only sounds that reached me : and the only 
moving objects were the sails of the old mill on the distant 
hill, and of slowly progressing plough-teams far off in the 
heavy fields. I never, in the moors of Scotland or of Corn- 
wall, felt such a brooding sense of a forlorn solitude. I 
need not have wondered, had I looked, as I have done since, 
and found, in the old maps of the county, this object laid 
down as Compton-Pike, and the place itself as the World's 
End! 

There was nothing for it but to push on in the most pro- 
bable direction of my route, and fortunately I soon spied — 
a man ! an old man, heavily mounting a stile on the hill- 
side, which led into the fields. I ran up as fast as I could, 
leaped the stile and called to him, But by this time he had 
advanced a good way into the next field. I still ran and 
shouted, but the wind blew towards me — the man was 
very old, and, doubtless, deaf. He went stalking on, with 
a tall staff in one hand, and a bag on his back — a figure 
worth anything to a painter, but a most provoking one to 
me. Luckily at this moment I descried another man at a 
distance, actually advancing towards me. I waited his ap- 
proach, and he soon pointed the direction of my course. 
Two such men in such a place were really little short of a 
miracle ; and this was as tall, picturesque, and weather- 
beaten an old fellow as the other. He was a shepherd, 
who had been all his life thereabout, but could give no 
more information respecting the old house than what I had 
heard before — that it had been stripped of its furniture 
ninety years ago, and some sent to Ashby Castle, and the 
rest sold. And what was this done for ? " ! elections, 



276 VISIT T0 COMPTON-WINYATES. 

sir ! elections ! they did it that have brought the hammer 
into many a good old house !" 

Pondering on the old man's words, I walked over the 
fields to Brailes, glad that the roof had been kept on the 
old house, and hopeful, if the wild solitude of its situation 
did not prevent it, that the rapidly increasing wealth and 
well-known taste of its present noble owner, may yet cause 
the refitting of Compton-Winyates, and its restoration to 
all its ancient state. 



A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

During the whole time I had been wandering in Corn- 
wall, the weather had been most glorious. Now and then, 
indeed, the southerly wind brought up from the sea one of 
those thick fogs that wrap up everything in a moment, and 
make some of the dreary scenes of that wild country ten- 
fold more dreary ; every object being enlarged, and yet only 
dimly descried through it, while the close stifling heat of 
it is intense, — you seem to walk about in a vapour-bath 
at a high temperature, and your clothes are as thoroughly 
saturated with wet as if you had been dipped in the ocean. 
Now and then this had been the case, but only for a short 
time ; the wind veered to another point, and the whole was 
swept away ; driving over the plains like smoke, you might 
almost suppose there was a city on fire beneath it ; and roll- 
ing along the sides of the bare hills and high craggy coasts 
in a style that might rejoice the eye of the painter and the 
poet. It had been fine, but this morning seemed to rise, as 
if it would outshine all its forerunners. The sun ascended 
into a sky of cloudless and soul-inspiring azure ; a western 
breeze came with that fluttering freshness which tells you 
it comes from the ocean : the dew lay in glittering drops on 
the sides of the green hills on each hand, and the lark was 
high in heaven overhead, sending forth all the fulness of 
the heart's rejoicing, which mine endeavoured to express 
in vain. 

I was fast approaching the western coast, and one of those 
deep wild valleys which, in so many places, run down from 

24 



278 A DAY-DREAM AT TESTTAGEL. 

the mainland to the sea-shore — gashes cut, as it were, by 
some giant hand in the days of the earth's infancy, to give 
a speedy access to the ocean, which you might have other- 
wise sought in vain amongst craggy hills and continuous 
precipices — now suddenly opened before me, and gave 
me, at once, sight of the magnificent Atlantic, flashing 
and rolling in the morning sun, and the lofty promontory 
and dark mouldering ruins I was in search of. 1 descended 
the ravine by its narrow rocky road. The polypody and 
hartstongue hung in long luxuriant greenness on the mossy 
acclivity at my right, the small wild rose blooming amongst 
them ; on the left ran, dashing and murmuring, a clear little 
torrent, soon intercepted by a picturesque old mill stuck in 
a nook of the hollow below me, whose large overshot-wheel 
sent the water splashing and spattering down into a rocky 
basin beneath, I stepped across this little stream, and 
wound along a path like a sheep-track up the steep side of 
the lofty hill on which stood the old palace. What a mag- 
nificent scene was here ! The ruins of that ancient place 
were visible over an extent that gave ample evidence of an 
abode befitting an old British king ; and their site was one 
worthy of the great hero of romance, the morning star of 
chivalry, and the theme of a thousand minstrel harps, ring- 
ing in hall and bower, diffusing love and martial daring in 
the sound. They occupied the hill on which I stood, and 
a high-towering and rock-ridged promontory, whose dark 
tremendous precipices frown awfully over the sea. Arches 
and flights of steps cut in the native rock remain ; and walls, 
based on the crags, as they protrude themselves from the 
ground, some at one elevation and some at another, and 
inclosing wide areas, which once were royal rooms, but are 
now carpeted with the softest turf; where the goat, or the 
mountain sheep, grazes, or seeks shelter from the noon sun 
and the ocean wind, and where the children from the mill 
come up and pursue their solitary sports, build mimic castles 



A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 379 

with the fallen stones of the dwelling of ancient kings, and 
enclose paddocks and gardens with rows of them. Some 
of these stones I put into my knapsack, for I would not dis- 
turb a particle which time had yet left in the place where 
the builder laid it many an age ago. Other battlemented 
walls, which constituted the out-works and fortifications, 
run winding here and there up the steeps, and along the 
strips of green turf, apparently natural terraces, on the 
heights of the promontory ; and, between the two hills, show 
themselves the massy foundations of the bridge which con- 
nected that part of the royal castle on the promontory with 
that on the mainland. This promontory is now called the 
island, because the mighty Atlantic has nearly succeeded 
by its perpetual attacks, century after century, with all the 
force of tides and tempests, in severing it entirely from the 
mainland. In stormy weather it rushes through the open- 
ing with a terrible roar and concussion ; and it has, in fact, 
made such an inroad between the island and the castle hill, 
as to have formed a large cove, surrounded by stupendous 
precipices, into which it pours, even at neap-tides, with a 
glorious rage, and most magnificent sound. It has carried 
away, in its aggression, half of the castle itself, and has left 
the other half aloft on the edge of a sheer descent of several 
hundred feet, awaiting its gradual destruction from the ever- 
lasting onset of the waves. The great circular tower — the 
one where we may suppose the Round Table to have stood, 
has thus fallen half into the gulf, and has half yet standing, 
to show awhile longer, by its lofty walls and ample dimen- 
sions, what a noble banqueting-room for one hundred and 
thirty heroes, and a due proportion of ladies fair, it must 
have been. 

I was standing on the edge of this dizzy height, listening 
to the solemn roar of the sea, as it rolled its host of waves 
into the cove, white as a sea of milk, amongst the square 
masses of rock scattered over its bottom, and to the cries of 



280 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

the choughs or red-legged crows, that soared and darted 
about over this wild scene of agitated waters, and amongst 
the lofty cliffs, with an evident and intense delight, that one 
well might envy, and uttering, with never-ceasing din, their 
quaint, croaking cry of, "choo, choo," whence they derive 
their name. I was listening thus, and letting my eyes wan- 
der right and left, where I still beheld only craggy downs, 
dun precipices, up which the waters were leaping, white as 
snow, and streaming down again slowly, as if they clung to 
the rocks in love, in streaks as of molten silver ; and the 
great ocean itself, with its everlasting life of motion and of 
sound — its breezy heart-strengthening freshness — its far- 
off sails — and its shoreward cries of many a wild-voiced 
bird. I was standing thus occupied when a troop of lads 
came merrily up the hill. When they saw me, there was 
a moment's silence. " Well, my lads," said I, " don't let me 
hinder your sport. I know what you are after; you mean 
to visit the nests of the terns and choughs, if you don't break 
your necks first." They looked at each other and laughed. 
" What hill do you call this ?"— " Hill, Sir ? ! it's Tintagel, 
Sir." — " Tintagel ! Well, and what old castle is this, then ?" 
— " Castle, Sir ? its King Arthur's castle !" — " King Arthur's 
castle ! and who was King Arthur ?" The lads seemed sharp 
lads enough ; they had sparkling eyes, faces full of intelli- 
gence ; they were lads full of activity and spirit, and yet 
they looked at one another with a funny kind of wonder. 
It was a question they had evidently never had put to 
them. The fame of King Arthur was a thing supposed to 
be so perfectly commonplace that nobody ever thought of 
asking about it ; and therefore the boys were unprovided 
with an answer. They were learned in a far different lore ; 
in the ways and means of coming at the retreats of terns, 
smews, choughs, and their airy and cliff -haunting fellows. 
" King Arthur !" at length said one of them, " why we don't 
know nothing about him, only as he was a king." — "A 



a Day-dream at tintagel. 281 

king! ay, but when could that be ? it can't have, been of 
late ; they have all been Georges and Williams lately." — 
" Oh ! Lord bless you, Sir ! this castle was built before we 
were born !" and with that most luminous solution of the 
difficulty, they scampered off, over crag, ruin, and green 
slope, down to the ravine, and up the opposite winding track 
to the top of the island, and soon were out of sight in eager 
pursuit of their object. 

Built before you were born ! Ay, sure enough, my light- 
hearted lads, by many a long century, if minstrels and 
chroniclers say true — thirteen at least — more ages than 
3^ou have seen years over your heads. And look ! every- 
thing around seems to say, that the old minstrels and 
chroniclers were right. There is an air of antiquity on the 
very hills themselves ; they are high and bare to the breezes 
of heaven and the ocean ; the rocks protrude from their 
green sides, gray with the stains of centuries — the ravages 
which the sea has committed on the land have not been 
effected in any trivial time — and the venerable walls of 
Tintagel have every character of an ancient and primitive 
masonry. They are built of the micaceous slate on which 
they stand ; a gray and sparkling substance, that, if found 
in blocks, might give a beautiful aspect to a building, but 
existing in such thin laminae — many not above a few 
inches thick — one cannot but equally wonder at the pa- 
tience with which those old builders piled them up, and at 
their not resorting to those endless blocks of harder stone 
that lie scattered over the hills of the neighbourhood. I 
know not whether Warton ever saw the place, but he 
gives you a very good idea of it in his " Grave of King 
Arthur" — 

O'er Cornwall's cliffs the tempest roared, 
High the screaming sea-mew soared ;. 
On Tintagel's topmost tower 
Darksome fell the sleety shower ; 
24* 



282 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL, 

Round the rough eastle shrilly sung 
The whirling blast, and wildly flung 
On each tall rampart's thundering side 
The surges of the tumbling tide. 

Yes I you may well imagine it to have been a " rough 
castle" of a very ancient day ; and yet you may as readily 
imagine it too in its first estate — in its majestic situation, 
with its walls of fresh silvery stone, with all its ample 
towers and halls, courts and ramparts, offices and gardens — 
to have stood a stately object of barbaric splendour. I threw 
myself with these thoughts on the warm green turf, leaning 
against a great block of stone on the edge of the gulf, and 
gazed on the strange scene. As the sound of the billows 
came up from below, and the cliffs stood around in their 
dark solemn grandeur, I gradually lost sight of the actual 
place, and was gone into the very land and times of old ro- 
mance. The Palace of Tintagel was no longer a ruin ; it 
stood before me in that barbaric splendour I had only be- 
fore supposed. There it was, in all its amplitude, with all 
its bastions and battlements, its towers and massy archways, 
dark, yet glittering in the sun with a metallic lustre. The 
porter stood by its gate; the warder paced its highest 
turret, beholding, with watchful glance, sea and land : 
guards walked to and fro on its great drawbridge, their 
battle-axes flashing in the morning beams as they turned ; 
pennons were streaming on every tower, and war-steeds 
were neighing in their stalls. There was a sound and a 
stir of life. Where I had seen before the bare green turf, I 
now saw knights jousting for pastime in the tilt-yard : 
where the sea had rolled, I beheld a fair garden, the very 
model of that of the Kinge's daughter of Hungarie. 

A garden that was full gay : 

And in the garden, as I ween, 
Was an arbour fair and green ; 
And in the arbour was a tree, 
No fairer in the world might be. 



A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 283 

The tree it was of cypress, 

The first tree that Jesus chose. 

The southernwood and sycamore, 

The red-rose and the lily-flower ; 

The box, the beech, and the laurel-tree, 

The date, also the damyse : 

The filberds hanging to the ground, 

The fig-tree, and the maple round ; 

And other trees there many a one, 

The pyany, poplar, and the plane, 

With broad branches all about, 

Within the arbour and without. 

On every branch sate birds- three, 

Singing with great melody. 

And in this arbour sate a noble dame, with a bevy of high- 
born damsels, whom she 

taught to sew and mark 
All manner of silken work, 
Taught them curtesy and thewe,* 
Gold and silk for to sew j 

and all nurture and goodly usages of hall and bower. 
Many a young knight and damsel paced the pleasant 
garden walks in high discourse or merriment, and other 
knights " in alleys cool" were playing at " the bowls." 

But the bugle blew ; the great portcullis went up with a 
jar ; there was a sound of horns, a clatter of horses' hoofs 
on the hard pavement, a cry of hounds, and forth issued 
from the castle court the most glorious pageant that the eye 
could look upon. It was no other than King Arthur, Queen 
Genevra, and a hundred knights and dames, equipped and 
mounted for the chase. ! for some old minstrel to tell us 
all their names, and place their beauty and bravery all be- 
fore us ! There they went — those famous warriors of the 

* Good manners. 



284 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

table round, on their strong steeds ; the fairest dames on 
earth, on their ambling jennets of Spain, with their mantles 
of green, and purple, and azure, fluttering in the breeze, 
and flashing in the sun. There they went — that noble, 
stalwart, and magnanimous Arthur at their head, wearing 
his helmet-crown as he was Avont in battle; that monarch 
of mighty fame, but mild and open countenance, who at 
fifteen had brought all Britain from uproar to peace — ex- 
pelled the Saxons — conquered Scotland, and afterwards 
Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Gothland, and Sweth- 
land, and took captive their kings ; killed the brave Froll, 
and the grim giant Dynabus ; slew five Paynim monarchs, 
the Grecian Emperor, and put to flight Lucius the Emperor 
of Rome, whither he afterwards went himself, and was 
crowned by all the cardinals. There he rode with King 
Ban-Booght and King Bos, and the brave and loving friends 
Sir Gawain and Sir Ywain : 

Sir Lancelot, Sir Stephen bold, 

They rode with them that day, 
And foremost of the company 

There rode the steward Kaye. 

So did Sir Banier and Sir Bore, 

And eke Sir Garratt keen ; 
Sir Tristram, too, that gentle knight, 

To the forest fresh and green. 

They had hounds and spears for stag and boar ; hawks 
for the heron, and greyhounds in leashes for the hare. They 
went on over hill and dale, beneath the boughs of the green- 
wood. Bright was the sun, fair the breeze, sweet the sound 
of the bugle and the chiding of the bounds, gladsome the 
sight of that gallant company, in full career after the flying 
hart, in the far-off forest. 

At length I saw them arrive in an open glade, where 



A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 235 

stood a rich pavilion ; and the ladies alighted, with certain 
of the younger knights and pages, and there they found 
meats and wines ready prepared for them ; and then some 
stretched themselves beneath the greenwood boughs, and 
listened to the lays of minstrels, and some disposed them- 
selves to dance in the open glade, while Arthur and his stout 
compeers went into the deep forests and rough holds to chase 
the boar. 

Anon, I saw stags and grizzly-tusked bears, laid across 
steeds, and borne towards the castle by serving-men ; and 
I turned thither again my own regards. I saw an old man 
come out of the gate, and seat himself on a stone seat under 
the southern wall of the castle. He was clad in the tawny 
robe of the minstrel ; his harp was slung in a band of gold 
embroidery before him ; his white beard spread on his 
breast, and his frame was feeble with excessive age. It 
was the king of the minstrels — the friend and companion 
of Uther Pendragon. I sate down on a piece of rock op- 
posite, and asked the venerable man of the days of 
Uther — of the high adventures of his own generation, 
and of those swarthy eastern people, whose galleys lay in 
almost every creek and bay, and whose followers explored 
the hills and the rivers for tin and brass. But anon, the 
royal troop came hurrying back. There was dismounting 
and arraying in chamber and bower — washing and sitting 
down to meat. There sate that illustrious company, at that 
illustrious board, where every place was the place of honour, 
and all precedence and jealousy were banished. There sate 
the noble Arthur — those warriors whose fame had gone 
through the whole world — that splendid Genevra, whose 
beauty was so queenly and dazzling that they who looked 
on her could scarcely remember her faults — and many a lady 
whose embroidered bodice and jewelled tiara the minstrels 
have described in such glowing terms, and who they de- 
clared, were " bright as blossoms on the breeze" — 



2S6 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

And white they were as the lily in May, 
Or the snow that snoweth on winter's day. 

The torches cast their flickering light on the storied arras 
around — the harps went merrily — the servers in their 
scarlet tunics, bound with a broad belt embroidered with 
zigzag lace, with chaplets on their heads, set before the 
guests venison, and flesh of the boar, and wild fowl, and 

Wine of Greke and muscadell, 
With clare, pyment, and Rochell. 

Royal was the cheer, whether the court lay at Carlisle, 
Caerleon, Camelot, or Tintagel ; for Arthur was bounteous 
in hall as mighty in battle. 

But to tell all the palpable and living visions that came 
before me would be endless. Now I seemed to be amongst 
that little knot of knights on that memorable day when they 
sate in the hall before the door of the king as he took his 
siesta, and the queen came and sate down with them, and 
heard the adventures of Sir Calgrevance at the enchanted 
fountain in the forest, with its basin and silver chain, which 
she made him repeat to Arthur ; and whence arose Sir 
Gawain's own exploit there, and all his future troubles. 
Now I seemed to see the good Lunet that so often befriended 
him come 

On her Jennette of Spayne that been so white, 
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright, 

to solicit aid for her lady mistress ; and now I beheld the 
lady Tryamour, as she rode into the palace court to vindicate 
the fame of Sir Launfall — a vision of beauty and splendour 
that amazed them all — with her mantle that she let fall, that 
the better might be seen her bewitching figure ; her gray pal- 
frey, her gorgeous saddle, the very jewel upon whose pom- 



A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 337 

mel was worth the best earldom in Lombardy — her falcon 
on her hand, and her two white greyhounds running at her 
side. 

A glorious land was that old land of romance. Its geo- 
graphy was none of the clearest, yet it was a land of most 
facile communication — knights and damsels were often lost 
for a time in its forest and wildernesses, but none for ever. 
They were sure to turn up some day. What a happy land 
was that in which Babylon, Jerusalem, Rome, France, Eng- 
land, and Fairyland to boot, were all within the range of its 
travellers, and all so accessible ; were visited by such un- 
imaginable means — hyppogriffs, winged horses, charmed 
couches, and, perhaps better than all, the boat Guingelot of 
Sir Wade ; — a land in which the daughters of emperors 
were always so beautiful, and where, however tried and 
persecuted virtue might be, miracles had not ceased, and 
were not withheld by a bountiful Providence from eventually 
crowning it with felicity. All there was poetical and pic- 
turesque. The generous youth aspired to distinction by 
honourable means, and he never found any lack of tyrants, 
giants, or dragons to contend with ; nor of beautiful dames, 
to bestow themselves and their ample domains upon him. 
Vast and fair were its forests — we love all forests now, be- 
cause they remind us of them ; venerable its hermits ; and 
never were such noble men, or fair and gorgeously-arrayed 
dames — nor such minstrels to celebrate them. Blessed is 
he that can even now escape, if but for an hour, into it. It 
can be but an hour — it will fade speedily away — it passed 
away from me as I sate on the cliff of Tintagel ; there was 
nothing left but the bare hill, the crumbling ruins, and the sea. 

I said that the vision faded away, and nothing was left 
but the bare hill, the crumbling ruins, and the sea — I 
should have said, nothing but Poetry and Nature. Nature 
was young, and triumphant as ever : the sun was in the 
sky, the breeze wandering over the earth and the ocean — 



288 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

the sea sent up its murmur, not of rage, but of power — 
and the voices of children, on the opposite hill, sent to my 
heart a cordial and cheerful delight : — and Poetry ! it was 
in all, and through all — it was that which had given me 
these visions of old romance. "And what good," some 
bald-spirited utilitarian will say, " do such dreams do you ?" 
They do much. It is from such dreams that we come 
refreshed, as by a draught of good old wine, to grapple with 
the realities of life. It is the spirit of poetry that has been 
thus able to transform a ruin into an Elysium ; and give 
back from the dust of ages, beauty and valour, glory and 
power ; what sneering spirit of doubt, of ignorance, or affect- 
ed wisdom, can do as much ? It was easy to show that this 
spirit has done more for us as a nation, than all the mere 
matter-of-fact men could do without it, however wise, or 
brave, or indefatigable. 

It is to poetry that we owe our knowledge of King 
Arthur — not to the fabulous history of Brutus — not to 
Geoffrey of Monmouth — it was from the lays of the 
minstrels that they derived him. And if we are told that, 
after all, King Arthur as a mere fable of the minstrels, we 
say, No. If such a man never existed, the minstrels — by 
combining everything great, generous and dignified, every- 
thing calculated to catch the better spirit and kindle a noble 
ambition — in such a character have given us an immortal 
and inestimable present. But they were not accustomed to 
hang their lays upon nothing — to fashion their heroes out 
of shadows. Their enthusiasm, that burns up whenever 
they touch upon him, even passingly, tells us that such a 
man had lived and won the warmest admiration of his 
countrymen. They might adorn him, but they could not 
create ; and they have adorned him, not in his spirit, but in 
his deeds. They have spread his conquest over lands that 
he never saw, or perhaps heard of; but in so doing, they 
have only more perfectly, as by a spirit of poetic prophecy, 



A DAY-DREAM At TINTAGEL. 289 

prefigured in him the British fortunes. What a career has 
this country run from those days to these ? We look now- 
over this ocean, and know that, went we to the ends of 
the earth, east or west, there we should find mighty 
nations resting under the shadow of our power, and pre- 
pared, by the infusion of our spirit, arts and religion, to 
unfold to future ages scenes of prosperity and happiness at 
present but dimly realized. A succession of poets, philoso- 
phers, statesmen, and heroes, have arisen in this island, 
which may not be excelled by any other nation. And 
what has borne them on to this pitch of greatness ? The 
great spirit of poetry which was diffused through their 
hearts, from generation to generation, descending in a con- 
tinuous stream from those simple but mighty minstrels that 
made the halls of kings and barons resound with the 
praises of such men as Arthur. 

Minstrels that walked far and wide, 
Here and there, on every side, 
In many a diverse land. 

They were simple, it is true ; but nature and poetry were 
strong in them. They give us touches of the beauty of 
nature, of human affection and human sorrow, that are un- 
rivalled by any more modern and more skilful bard. They 
are like flashes of lightning out of a cloud, that strike home 
in a moment. What can be more full of beauty, and pity, 
and love, than that story of Emare, who was sent afloat on 
the sea with her infant in a little boat — pure in heart, but 
wronged in character and affection — and then, as she 
survived, and lived in a strange court, and — 

The child began for to thrive, 
And waxed the fairest child alive, 
White as flower on hill ; 
25 



290 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

And she sewed silk-work in bower, 

And taught unto her son nurture — 

But ever she mourned still ! 

So much was Chaucer delighted with this, that he rewrote 
it, as his " Man of Law's Tale." What can be more 
touching than that speech of Annie of Lochroyan — a ballad 
of a later, but still of a rude age — when she supposes her- 
self abandoned by her lover, whom she had made a voyage 
to see in a splendid bark ? 

Take down, take down, this mast of gold 4 

Set up a mast of tree ; 
It does na become a forsaken lady 

To ride sae royally. 

The old minstrels were fond of the marvellous, it is true, 
but that was only the stirring of the poetic spirit within 
them — a spirit that is always seeking after the beautiful, 
the new and the wonderful — after something beyond the 
bareness of every-day life. They had, like other men, their 
extravagances ; but their hearts were strong in the right — 
in right true feelings — in the sense of honour, and justice, 
and humanity. Their heroes did not seek to recommend 
themselves by dressing, and lounging, and affecting the fine 
gentlemen — it was only by a self-renouncing course of 
noble and patriotic action that they could win acceptance. 
They were always simple, earnest, in love only with nature 
and truth; — >they never attempted to make the worse ap- 
pear the better reason. Their minds were noble, and their 
feelings healthful. It may be seen in the " Squire of Low 
Degree," what sort of men the ladies of those days admired. 
This, it must be allowed, was a far more rational and better 
tone of morals and manners than prevails amongst large 
classes of the present day ; and it was by this means that 
the love of honourable deeds was kept alive from age to 



A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 291 

age — that it stimulated to high exploits kings and barons. 
It is to these men and their lays that we owe the great poem 
of Ariosto, much of that of Tasso, many of the best tales of 
Boccaccio ; from these drew strength and inspiration, Chau- 
cer, Gower, and Spenser ; and greater still, Shakspeare and 
Milton, the crowned kings of the land of poetry. Several 
of Shakspeare 's finest dramas are restorations and amplifi- 
cations of the lays of those old minstrels ; and what does 
Milton say in recounting the studies of his youth ? — the 
preparations for that great fame he afterwards achieved ! 
Having imbued himself with classical knowledge — 
" Next," he adds, " I betook me amongst those lofty fables 
and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of 
knighthood, so that even those books proved to me so many 
enticements to the love and steadfast observation of virtue." 
And his knowledge of these furnished him with many beau- 
tiful allusions, as.^ 

■ what resounds 



In fable or romance of Uther's son, 
Begirt with British and Armoric knights ; 
And all who since, baptized or infidel, 
Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban, 
Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond ; 
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore, 
When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell 
By Fontarabbia, 



And again, — 



Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 

When Agrican, with all his northern powers, 

Besieged Albracca, as romances tell, 

The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win 

The fairest of her sex, Angelica, 

His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, 

Both Paynim, and the peers of Charlemagne. 



292 A DAY-DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

Such were the fruits of the poetic feeling kindled in this 
country by our old minstrels. The spirit they awakened 
has grown and spread on every side ; and if any one says 
we might have had the same sages, heroes, and men of 
science, without poetry, I say no. Without our poetry, we 
had been a nation of Dutchmen — slaves to the duties of 
the day — drudges of accumulation — blind- worms of the 
earth, fattening in darkness, seeing nothing of the sun in 
the heavens — ascending not to the mountain-tops of 
thought and feeling, whence only the earth itself can be 
seen in its breath and true loveliness. 

For what is poetry ? It is not merely the melody of verse, 
or the spirit of passion and emotion embodied in verse. It 
is a revelation from heaven of its own beauty and glory — 
an atmosphere of heaven, breathed down and diffused 
through our grosser one, by which we become sensible of 
the strength of joy in the heart, of the moral greatness of 
our better nature ; of the treasures of past intellect, and the 
full grandeur and rainbow splendour of human hopes. It 
is this spirit that is continually lifting us out of the clay of 
the earth — out of the grossness of our animal condition ; to 
a perception of wider views, intenser being ; more generous, 
glowing and ethereal aspirations. It is like that suffusion 
of purple and violet light cast down from the evening sun 
over the mountains, which, however beautiful in them- 
selves, derive a tenfold and heavenly beauty from it. It is 
not so much a part of ourselves, as the spirit of an eternal 
and divine world, which moulds and incorporates us into 
itself, and changes us from what we are to what we are to be. 

Let no man fall into the grievous mistake that poetry 
only lives in verse — nor that it is confined to language at 
all. It is a far and widely diffused spirit, and lives in all 
human hearts, more or less, and often in greater affluence 
than we imagine. It cannot always throw itself into lan- 
guage. Mr. Wordsworth truly says — 



A DAY-DREAM AT TENTAGEL. 293 

Oh ! many are the poets that are sown 

By nature ; men endowed with highest gifts, 

The vision and the faculty divine, 

Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse. 

And another great poet of our time says, that even he 
could not express all the poetry that lived within him. 

I would speak, 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 

But we hear a great deal of the philosophy of life — the 
poetry of life is equally real, and far more generally dif- 
fused. It is that spirit which mingles itself with all our 
hopes, affections, sorrows, and even death, and beautifies 
them all. It mingles itself with the ambition of aspirants 
in every honourable track — with the emotions of the lover, 
with the ardour of the hero, till it covers the battle-field pit 
from his eyes, and shows him only a halo of glory — with 
the patriotism of the righteous statesman — with all our 
social attachments and intercourse, and spreads the roses of 
heaven on the beaten path of our daily life. No human 
speculation, no human pursuit, no human feeling, which is 
not utterly selfish and base, but draws fire and force from 
this spirit — and is borne by its elating influence towards 
its legitimate end. It is impossible to point out any nation 
that has become great, or even successful for a time, with- 
out it. Of the ancient nations we need not speak — in all, 
of which we know anything but the barest facts, poetry, 
and the intense desire of glory, which cannot exist totally 
distinct from poetical feeling, were found. From some of 
them, what have we not received ! The very Saracens, 
when, under Mahomet, they suddenly overflowed Asia, 
Africa, and part of Europe, were set on fire by the poetic 
charms of his new paradise ; — the Teutons, who extin- 

25* 



294 A DAY DREAM AT TINTAGEL. 

guished the last sparks of the Roman empire, and laid the 
foundations of the present European kingdoms, were not 
led hither merely for food — it was Valhalla, and the poetic 
legends of their Scalds, that armed and animated them. 
We cannot take away poetry from life, without reducing it 
to the level of animal stupidity. In our days, stupendous 
events have passed on the face of the civilized world, and 
equally extraordinary has been the development of poetic 
power. A host of great names will be left to posterity, and 
with them a host of new impulses, that will fill futurity 
with increase of light and happiness ; and as Christianity 
becomes better understood, as our natures become better 
understood, as the spirit of love begins" to predominate over 
the spirit of selfishness, — the true poetry of life, and its 
power, shall be more and more acknowledged. Men will 
feel, that in aspiring after true honour — in desiring to be- 
come benefactors of men — to spread knowledge and intel- 
lectual beauty, they are but giving exercise to the divine 
spirit of poetry which is sent from heaven to warm and 
embellish every human heart, though often unseen and un- 
acknowledged ; and they will work in the spirit of love 
and in its enjoyment. 

I rose from my rocky seat. The nakedness of the sea- 
worn hill, the masses of crumbling ruins, seemed to me to 
be just as they ought — they have an aspect of antiquity 
which separates them from every-day things, and leads us 
back to a point in human history whence we look down to 
the present times with wonder and joy. For myself, re- 
joicing in the past, and confident of the future, I went on 
refreshed by my Day-dream at Tintagel. 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 

In the days of Sam Johnson and of Pennant, it was 
deemed a vast and adventurous undertaking to reach the 

Hebrid Isles, 
Placed fat amid the melancholy main. 

It was then only one or two zealous travellers in an age, 
who accomplished so great and dangerous a voyage. In 
our boyhood, we read Johnson's " Tour to the Hebrides/' 
and the poetic allusions of Collins and Thomson to the 
Western Isles, with a feeling that those regions of poetical 
wildness were only to be reached by a few fortunate mor- 
tals. What a change have commercial wealth and steam 
produced ! The turbulent ocean of the west is laid open — 
the mists that hang about the shores and mountains of its 
once mysterious isles are not cleared away, but they are 
daily penetrated by the barks of our summer tourists : and 
Stafla and Iona are as familiar to thousands, as St. Paul's 
or the Tower. So many are the accounts of trips to these 
places already published, that I am not intending to add 
another to them ; and for the history, natural or unnatural, 
or supernatural, civil or uncivil, I shall content myself with 
the knowledge that there are such works as those of 
Martyn, Macculloch, and Gregory. I propose only to note 
down a few such impressions on my visit to these celebrated 
spots, as I imagine are the most common to those who 
generally go thither. What, indeed, is the great object of a 
voyage to the Western Isles? Without doubt, in nine 



296 VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 

cases out of ten, to unbend the mind from the stress of its 
ordinary occupations and cares. To refresh it with what- 
ever is most accessible of novelty and grandeur — to luxu- 
riate in the picturesque. Would it not then be difficult for 
the inhabitants of our cities to choose any track of a 
moderate extent, where they would meet with more to their 
purpose ? What a change is here, in the course of a few 
short days ; from the noise and crush of the metropolis, for 
instance, to the solitude of nature in her wildest aspect — • 
from heat and dust, to the fresh breeze and the fresh ocean 
— from shops, factories, offices, invoices, and cash accounts, 
to splintered mountains, rolling billows, the misty isles of all 
the poetical traditions and superstitions of our early reading. 
Nothing can be more unlike our ordinary existence, and 
therefore nothing for a brief period more agreeable. A trip 
to Stafla and Iona ! it is an episode in our unromantic history 
of life, all romance, all poetry. The spirit of Collins, and 
Thomson, of Ossian, of Leyden, and Scott, and Campbell 
is upon us. We desire to see the regions which they have 
invested with so many charms ; to tread the lands of second- 
sight, and airy spirits ; to touch at Icolmkill, the primitive 
asylum of British learning and religion ; we would look on 
the tombs and shattered images that stood when 

Aodh, famed afar, 
In Iona preached the word with power ; 
And Reullura, beauty's star, 
Was the partner of his bower. 

We are bound for the region of ghosts and fays, mermaids 
and kelpies, of great sea-snakes, and a hundred other mar- 
vels and miracles. To accomplish all this, we have nothing 
more to do than step on board the steam-packet that lies at 
the Broomielaw, or great quay at Glasgow. The volume of 
heavy black smoke, issuing from its nickled chimney, an- 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 297 

nounces that it means to be moving on its way speedily. 
Hark ! the bell rings ; your fellow-travellers are running 
aboard ; the plank is pulled back to the pier, and you are 
bound on as fair a voyage as ever prince or paladin attempt- 
ed. If it were only to skirt the busy banks of the Clyde ; 
to traverse the romantic kyles of Bute ; to sit on deck quietly, 
but delightedly gazing on the cloudy heights and hollows 
of Arran ; on the solitary shores of Cowal and Cantire, — 
it were a little voyage of bold beauty, not readily to be 
matched in the same distance in any other quarter. But, 
steering along the western shore of Loch Fine, you soon 
arrive at Loch Gilp-head, where your steam Gerhe suspends 
his energies, stops his busy paddles, and you are feasted on 
salmon and white-herrings, drawn fresh from the deep be- 
neath you ; a feast, indeed, of such delicacy, that an epicure 
would think it worth going all the way for, solely. Your 
entertainment over, your vessel enters the Crinan canal, 
which runs across the Mull of Cantire, and while it leisurely 
winds along, through a delightful country of wooded hills 
and moorland solitudes, you may walk on a-head, and find, 
when you come to speak with the inhabitants, that you are 
in the Highlands, where Gaelic is the native speech. But 
emerging, from the Crinan canal, you issue forth into the 
Sound of Jura, and feel at once that you are in the stern and 
yet beautiful region of your youthful admiration. There is 
the heavy swell and the solemn roar of the great Atlantic. 
You feel the wild winds that sweep over it. You see around 
you only high and craggy coasts, that are bleak and naked 
with the lashing of a thousand tempests. All before you 
are scattered rocks that emerge from the restless sea, and 
rocky isles, with patches of the most beautiful greensward, 
but with scarcely a single tree. The waves are leaping in 
whiteness against the cliffs, and thousands of sea-birds are 
floating in long lines on the billows, or skimming past you 
singly, and diving into the clear hissing waters as they near 



298 VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 

your vessel. One of the very first objects which arrests 
your senses is the Coryvrekan, or great whirlpool of the He- 
brides, — an awful feature in all the poetry and ballads 
belonging to these regions ; 

Where loud the Coryvrekan roars. 

This is Martin's account of it. " Between the north end of 
Jura and the isle of Scarba, lies the famous and dangerous 
gulf called Coryvrekan, about a mile in breadth. It yields 
an impetuous current not to be matched anywhere about 
the isle of Britain. The sea begins to boil and ferment with 
the tide of flood, and resembles the boiling of a pot, and then 
increases gradually, until it appears in many whirlpools, 
which form themselves in sort of pyramids, and immediately 
afterwards spout up as high as the mast of a little vessel, 
and at the same time make a loud report. These white 
waves run two leagues with the wind before they break. 
The sea continues to repeat these various motions from 
the beginning of the tide of flood, until it is more than half 
flood, and then it decreases gradually until it hath ebbed 
about half an hour, and continues to boil till it is within 
half an hour of low water. This boiling of the sea is not 
above a pistol-shot distant from the coast of Scarba Isle, 
where the white waves meet and spout up ; they call it the 
Kailloch, i. e. an old hag ; and they say, when she puts on 
her handkerchief, i. e. the whitest waves, it is fatal to ap- 
proach her. Notwithstanding of this great ferment of the 
sea, which brings up the smallest shells from the ground, 
the least fisher-boat may venture to cross this gulf at the 
last hour of the tide of flood and the last hour of the tide 
of ebb. 

" This gulf hath its name from Brekan, said to be the 
son of the King of Denmark, who was drowned here, cast 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 299 

ashore in the north of Jura, and buried in a cave, as ap- 
pears from the stone tomb and altar there." 

I suppose we were not nearer than three miles to this 
" loud Coryvrekan," yet we heard its angry roar, and saw 
its waters white as snow, tossing and leaping in strange 
commotion. We glided along, gazing on the lofty heights 
of Jura, upwards of 2000 feet above the level of the sea, 
and on the cloudy bulk of the huge Ben More in the more 
distant isle of Mull, and passed through similar scenery, to 
our haven for the night — Oban. Here we climbed the 
mountains that rise behind the town, and gazed far over 
the sea and its scattered islands ; walked up to the pic- 
turesque Castle of Dunolly, and saw the eagle, confined in 
a hole of the ruined wall, which has been celebrated by 
Wordsworth ; had a look at Dunstaffnage, the ancient 
palace of the Scottish kings, and in the morning resumed 
our course to Staffa and Iona. 

What a sweet voyage is that up the Sound of Mull ! The 
clear leaping waters ; — the wild, dreamy mountain lands 
all around you ! Every object which successively catches 
your eye brings some poetical associations. There is the 
Castle of Duart — there is " Artornish Hall" — there the 
stern fortress of Aros ; and lastly, on your right lies Morven 
itself— the land of Ossian, — with its blue, misty hills ; its 
rugged, wave-bathed coast ; and its clear streams, that come 
hurrying and shining in the sun ! Another night at Tober- 
mory, and then round the north headland of Mull forth into 
the rough Atlantic. All before you, and to the right, Eig 
and Canna and Rum, and in the dim horizon the far moun- 
tains of Skye. The course now, however, was southward, 
past the clustered islands of Treshanish, with Gometra, 
Colonsa, and Mull on your left, and Staffa rising like an 
isolated crag from the waves before you. 

I never visited any part of Great Britain which more 
completely met my anticipated ideas than this. The day 



300 1VISTF T0 STAFFA AND IONA. 

was fine, but with a strong breeze. The sea was rough ; 
the wild-fowl Were flying, scudding, and dividing on all 
hands ; and, wherever the eye turned, were craggy islands, 
— mountains of dark heath or bare splintered stone, and 
green, solitary slopes, where scarcely a tree or a hut was to 
be discovered ; but now and then black cattle might be de- 
scried grazing, or flocks of sheep dotted the hill sides. Far 
as we could look, were naked rocks rising from the sea, 
that were worn almost into roundness, or scooped into hol- 
lows by the eternal action of the stormy waters. Some of 
them stood in huge arches, like temples of some shaggy 
sea-god, or haunts of sea-fowl, — daylight and the waves 
passing freely through them. Everywhere were waves, 
leaping in snowy foam against these rocks and against the 
shaggy shores. It was a stern wilderness of chafing billows 
and of resisting stone. The rocks were principally of dark 
red granite, and were cracked across and across, as if by 
the action of fire or frost. Everything spake to us of the 
wild tempests that so frequently rage through these seas. 

Gazing on such a scene, you no longer wonder at the 
popular superstitions of the Hebrides, not even at their be- 
lief in all the marvels of their second-sight. 

To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, 

Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow ! 

The seer in Skye shrieked as the blood did flow, 
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay ! 
As Boreas threw his young Aurora forth,* 

In the first year of the first George's reign, 
And battles raged in Welkin of the North. 

They mourned in air, fell, fell rebellion slain ! 
And, as of late, they joyed in Preston's fight, 

Saw at sad Falkirk all their hopes near crowned ! 
They raved, divining through their second-sight, 

Pale, red Culloden where those hopes were drowned ! 

Collins. 

* The northern lights, said to be first seen in 1715. 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 301 

But StafFa rose momently in its majesty before us ! After 
all the descriptions which we had read, and the views we 
had seen of this singular little island, we were struck with 
delightful astonishment at its aspect. It is, in fact, one 
great mass of basaltic columns, bearing on their head an- 
other huge mass of black stone, here and there covered with 
green turf. We sailed past the different caves, — the Boat 
Cave and the Cormorant Cave, which are themselves very 
wonderful ; but it was Fingal's Cave that struck us with 
admiration and awe. To see the magnificent cavern, with 
its clustered columns on each side, and pointed arch, with 
the bleak precipices above it, and the sea raging at its base, 
and dashing and roaring into its gloomy interior, was worth 
all the voyage. There are no words that can express the 
sensation it creates. We were taken in the boats on shore 
at the north-east point, and landed amid a wilderness of 
basaltic columns thrown into all forms and directions. 
Some were broken, and lay in heaps in the clear green 
water. Others were piled up erect and abrupt ; some were 
twisted up into tortuous pyramids at a^little distance from 
the shore itself, and through the passage which they left 
the sea came rushing — all foam, with the most tremendous 
roar. Others were bent like so many leaden pipes, and 
turned their broken extremities towards us. We advanced 
along a sort of giant's causeway, the pavement of which 
was the heads of basaltic columns, all fitting together in the 
most beautiful symmetry ; and, turning round the precipice 
to our right hand, found ourselves at the entrance of the 
great cave. The sea was too stormy to allow us to enter 
it, as is often done in boats, we had therefore to clamber 
along one of its sides, where a row of columns is broken 
off, at some distance above the waves, and presents an ac^ 
cessible, but certainly very formidable causeway, by which 
you may reach the far end. 

I do not believe that any stranger, if he were there alone, 

26 



302 VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 

would dare to pass along that irregular and slippery cause- 
way, and penetrate to the obscure end of the cave ; but 
numbers animate one another to anything. We clambered 
along this causeway or corridor, now ascending and now 
descending, as the broken columns required, and soon stood 
; — upwards of seventy of us — ranged along its side from 
one end to the other. Let it be remembered that this 
splendid sea-cave is forty-two feet wide at the entrance ; 
sixty-six feet high from, the water ; and runs into the rock 
two hundred and twenty -seven feet. Let it be imagined 
that at eight or ten feet below us it was paved with the sea, 
which came rushing and foaming along it, and dashing up 
against the solid rock at its termination ; while the light 
thrown from the flickering billows quivered in its arched 
roof above us, and the whole place was filled with the 
solemn sound of the ocean ; and if any one can imagine to 
himself any situation more sublime, I should like to know 
what that is. The roof is composed of the lower ends of 
basaltic columns, which have yet been so cut away by nature 
as to give it the aspect of the roof of some gigantic cathedral 
isle ; and lichens of gold and crimson have gilded and 
coloured it in the richest manner. It was difficult to forget, 
as we stood there, that, if any one slipped, he would dis- 
appear for ever, for the billows in their ebb would sweep 
him out to the open sea, as it were, in a moment. Yet the 
excitement of the whole group was too evident to rest with 
any seriousness on such a thought. Some one suddenly 
fired a gun in the place, and the concussion and reverbe- 
rated thunders were astounding. When the first effect was 
gone off, one general peal of laughter rung through the 
cave, and then nearly the. whole company began to sing 
"The sea! the sea!" The captain found it a difficult 
matter to get his company out of this strange chantry — 
where they and the wind and waves seemed all going mad 
together — to embark them again for Iona. 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 303 

Venerable Iona — how different! and with what dif- 
ferent feelings approached ! As we drew near, we saw a 
low bleak shore, backed by naked hills, and at their feet a 
row of miserable Highland huts, and at separate intervals 
the ruins of the monastery and church of Ronad, the church 
of St. Oran and its burying ground, and lastly, the cathe- 
dral. The following is from Martin's account of these, as 
they remained in his time. 

" This isle was anciently a seminary of learning, famous 
for the severe discipline and sanctity of Columbus. He 
built two churches and two monasteries in it, one for men 
and the other for women ; which were endowed by the kings 
of Scotland and of the Isles, so that the revenue of the church 

then amounted to four thousand marks per annum 

St. Marie's church here is built in the form of a cross ; the 
choir twenty yards long, the cupola twenty-one feet square, 
the body of the church of equal length with the choir, and 
the two aisles half that length. There are two chapels on 
each side of the choir; the entry to them opens with large 
pillars neatly carved in basso-relievo. The steeple is pretty 
large. The doors, windows, etc., are curiously carved. 
The altar is large, and of as fine marble as ever I saw. 
There are several abbots buried within the church ; Mack 
Ilikenich, his statue is done in black marble, as big as 
the life, in an episcopal habit, mitre, crosier, ring and stones 
along the breast, etc. The rest of the abbots are done after 
the same manner. The inscription of one tomb is as fol- 
lows : — Hicjacet Joannes Mack Fingone, Abbas de Oui, 
qui obiit Anno Domini milesimo quingentesimo. Bishop 
Knox, and several persons of distinction, as Mack Leod of 
Harries, have also been buried here. There's the ruins of 
a cloister behind the church, as also a library, and under it 
a large room ; the natives say it was a place of public dis- 
putations. There is a heap of stones without the church, 
under which Mackean of Audnamurchan lies buried. 



304 VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 

There is an empty piece of ground between the church and 
the gardens, in which murderers and children that died be- 
fore baptism were buried. Near to the west end of the 
church in a little cell lies Columbus his tomb, but without 
inscription. 

" Near St. Columbus's tomb is St. Martin's Cross, an entire 
stone of eight feet high. It is a very hard and red stone, 
with a mixture of gray in it : on the west side of the cross 
is engraven a large crucifix, and on the east a tree. It stands 

on a pedestal of the same kind of stone A little further 

to the west lie the black stones, on which Mack Donald, 
King of the Isles, delivered the rights of their lands to his 
vassals in the Isles and Continent, with uplifted hands and 
bended knees ; and in this posture, before many witnesses, 
he solemnly swore that he would never recall those rights 
which he then granted ; and this was instead of his great 
seal. Hence it is that when any one was certain of what he 
affirmed, he said positively, ' I have freedom to swear this 
matter upon the black stones.' 

" At some distance from St. Marie's is St. Oran's church, 
commonly called Reliqui Ouran. The saint of that name is 
buried within it. 

" The Laird of Mack Kinnon has a tomb within this 
church, which is the stateliest tomb in the isle. On the 
wall above the tomb there is a crucifix engraven, having the 
arms of the family beneath ; viz., a bo vis head, with a couple 
of sheep's bones in its jaws. The tombstone has a statue as 
big as life, all in armour, and upon it a ship under sail ; a 

lion at the head, and another at the feet There are other 

persons of distinction in the church, all done in armour. 

" On the south side of this church is the burial-place in 
which the kings and chiefs of tribes are buried, and over 
them a shrine. There was an inscription giving an account 
of each particular tomb, but time has worn them off. The 
middlemost had written on it, * The Tombs of the Kings of 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 305 

Scotland,'' of which forty lie there. Upon that on the right 
hand, < The tombs of the Kings of Ireland,'' of which four 
were buried there. And upon that on the left hand, ' The 
Kings of Norway,' of which eight were buried there. Next 
to the kings, is the tombstone of Mack Donald of Isla ; the 
arms a ship with hoisted sails, a standard, four lions and a 
tree. The inscription, ' Hie Jacet corpus Angusi Mack 
Donuil de Isle' There are besides the tombs of the Mack 
Donalds, Mack Leans, and Mack Alisters, with effigies in 
armour as big as life. 

" About a quarter of a mile further south is the church 
Konad,'m. which prioresses are buried Without the nun- 
nery there is such another square as that beside the monas- 
tery for men. The two pavements, which are of a hard red 
stone, are yet entire. In the middle of the longest pave- 
ment there is a large cross, like to that mentioned above, and 
is called Mack Lean's cross." 

A good deal of these remains of this ancient and venera- 
ble establishment has been defaced or destroyed since Martin 
saw them ; and especially the altar ; but nothing is more 
striking, than, in this wild and neglected spot, yet to walk 
amongst these ruins, and behold amid the rank grass those 
tombs of ancient kings, chiefs, and churchmen, with their 
sculpture of so singular and yet superior a style. 

It is said that there were formerly three hundred and sixty 
stone crosses in the island of Iona, which since the Reforma 
tion have been reduced to two, and the fragments of two 
others. The Synod of Argyle is reported to have caused no 
less than sixty of them to be thrown into the sea at one 
time ; and fragments of others, which were knocked in 
pieces, are to be seen here and there, some of them now con- 
verted into gravestones. Amongst the most curious sculp- 
ture remaining, are Adam and Eve eating the forbidden 
fruit under the tree, on St. Martin's cross; the carved 
pavement of St. Oran's chapel, especially that of some sin- 

26* 



306 VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 

gular bells ; and the grotesque scenes carved on the capitals 
of the pillars in the cathedral, including the celebrated one of 
an angel weighing souls, and the devil putting his foot into 
the scale against them. 

The details of these may be found in the works to which 
I have referred, and are too numerous for my limits ; but 
the masterly style of the sculpture, the singular stories indi- 
cated in some of the carving on the walls, and the unique 
and beautiful foliage and flowers with which the tombs are 
adorned by the chisel, cannot be seen without a very lively 
admiration. They lie on the margin of the stormy At- 
lantic ; they lie amongst walls which though they may be 
loosened by years seem as though they never could decay, 
for they are the red granite of which the rocks and islets 
around are composed, and defended only by low inclosures 
piled up of the same granite, rounded into great pebbles by 
the washing of the sea. 

But perhaps the most striking scene of all, was our own 
company of voyagers landing amid the huge masses of rock 
that scatter the strand ; forming into long procession, two 
and two, and advancing in that order from one ruin to 
another. We chanced to linger behind for a moment ; and 
our eye caught this procession of upwards of seventy per- 
sons thus wandering on amid those time-worn edifices — 
and here and there a solitary cross lifting its head above them. 
It was a picture worthy of a great painter. It looked as though 
the day of pilgrimages was come back again, and that this 
was a troop of devotees thronging to this holy shrine. The 
day of pilgrimages is, indeed, come back again; but they 
are the pilgrimages of knowledge, and an enlightened 
curiosity. The day of that science which the saints of Iona 
were said to diffuse first in Britain, has now risen to a 
splendid noon ; and not the least of its evidences is, that 
every few days through every summer, a company like this 
descends on this barren strand, to behold what Johnson 
calls, " that illustrious island which was once the luminary 



VISIT TO STAFFA AND IONA. 307 

of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving 
barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the bless- 
ings of religion." A more interesting or laudable excur- 
sion, the power of steam and English money cannot well 
enable our countrymen to make. It would be still better 
did any quantity of their money remain on this island ; for 
in truth, the cottagers here seem dreadfully poor and des- 
stitute of comforts. As we passed their doors, a woman 
stood and with a very anxious face and imploring tone 
continued asking something as the procession passed by. 
Her words were Gaelic ; we did not understand them, but 
nobody could mistake her tone or look ; and some one in 
the procession who knew the language, told us that she 
asked, "Is there any doctor here?" Adding, "a man is 
very ill, and without a doctor I am afraid he must die." 
But there was no doctor — and the poor man was left to take 
his chance of one happening to come with the next packet, 
perhaps to be again disappointed, if he were then alive. 

The children here gain a trifle by offering, in little dishes, 
pebbles of green serpentine which they collect on the shore ; 
and the old schoolmaster who acts as guide, makes some- 
thing by his profession and his little books descriptive of 
the place ; but even he has got an opponent, who on this 
occasion created both the old guide and ourselves a good 
deal of confusion. Here we must bid adieu to Iona, only 
adding that the superstition related by Collins is still be- 
lieved by the inhabitants. 

Where beneath the showery west, 
The mighty kings of three fair realms were laid, 

Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, 
No slaves revere them, and no woes invade; 

Yet frequent now at midnight, solemn hour, 
The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, 

And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, 
In pageant robes, and wreathed with shining gold, 
And on their twilight tombs, aerial council hold. 



VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 

The nearness of Edge-hill to Compton-Winyates led me 
thither. Indeed, as I had walked from Stratford, Edge-hill 
had gradually risen, as it were, before me, till it filled with 
its lofty edge the whole of the horizon on that side. A 
tower near a mill, which was conspicuous on this height, 
was constantly pointed out to me by the country-people as 
standing just above the scene of the battle. The road 
continued to ascend nearly all the way from Stratford, being 
a distance of about ten miles, and then the edge rising high 
and almost precipitately, it may be imagined that the ele- 
vation of the country on its summit is very great. So great, 
indeed, is it, that it gives you one of the most extensive 
prospects in the kingdom. The district towards Stratford, 
Warwick, and Coventry, and across into Gloucestershire 
and Worcestershire, lies in a grand expanse before you. 
You seem to take in, on a clear day, the breadth of a king- 
dom almost. On the other side, into Oxfordshire, and to- 
wards Banbury, the views are also very airy and attractive, 
but not so extensive by any means, because Edge-hill is 
truly an edge, that is, it is a steep, where the country 
takes an abrupt rise, and when you gain the summit you 
find yourselves not so much on a hill, as on the level of a 
higher country. 

The people from Banbury and other neighbouring towns, 
are fond of making a summer's excursion to Edge-hill, 
drawn thither by the combined interest of the battle-scene 
and the magnificence of the views ; and truly they could not 



VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 309 

readily find a more delightful excursion. The Sun-Rising, 
a substantial farm-house as well as inn, standing on the 
summit of the hill within a mile of the scene of battle, is a 
good point for the " refreshment of both man and horse," 
and where they will find in the landlord a most intelligent 
guide, who can show them, too, swords and cannon-shot 
which his own men have turned up when ploughing in his 
farm. 

I reached this house in the dusk of evening, after a long 
day's ramble, grid was greatly struck with its solitary ele- 
vation in the dimness of a wild twilight. The country far 
below me showed through the mists and shadows of coming 
night, wide and vast. The door, contrary to the wont of 
inns, I found fast; and on knocking, I was answered by a fe- 
male voice within, demanding who was there. When I had 
satisfied the inquirer, I heard the slow and seemingly re- 
luctant fall of chains and withdrawal of bolts and bars, and 
presently an elderly face took a peep at me through the 
partially-opened door. When admitted, I found that this 
respectable-looking matron and myself were the sole per- 
sons in this large old house. It was Michaelmas, and all 
the servants were at liberty, and gone off to the towns to the 
statutes, and mops, and bull-roastings, which are the regular 
places of amusement, and rehiring for all the servants, men 
and women, throughout the country at that time of the year. 
The landlady's son was gone to market, and thus was she 
left alone, and naturally apprehensive of rude and thievish 
strollers who are on the alert on such occasions, in solitary 
districts. The good woman soon introduced me into a well- 
furnished and well-carpeted room, with a blazing fire, and 
tea and toast before me, and Jacob Hooper's History of the 
Rebellion, with a paper-mark at the account of the battle of 
Edge-hill, and Richard Jago's Poem of Edge-hill, to ponder 
over ; and with a sense of the high wild country in which 
I was, upon me, and the winds of autumn whistling and 



310 VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 

roaring round the house, I do not know that I ever spent a 
more pleasantly solitary evening. 

In the morning I sallied forth, and passing Upton House, 
a lonely-looking seat of Lord Jersey, with a solemn avenue 
of large Scotch firs leading down to it, I was soon at the 
tower which had been my land-mark the day before, and 
which the country -people always designated as the Round- 
house. This is a lofty round tower, which has been built 
by Colonel Miller, who lives at Radway, on the slope just 
below, and who has put into it a veteran sergeant who 
fought with him at Waterloo, of the goodly name of Wil- 
liam Perm. 

Penn lives in the lower part of the tower, and a bridge 
from the road, which is a good deal above the^ foundation 
of the tower, leads into the upper story. The entrance of 
the bridge is by an artificial ruin, and there are buildings 
on the opposite side of the road representing other ruins, 
which, with the lofty round tower, have been planned not 
only to form a conspicuous object afar off, but from the 
Colonel's house below ; and though I do not admire arti- 
ficial ruins in general, it must be confessed that these had 
been erected with much better taste than such things in general. 

I had expected, from what the country-people said, that 
this tower was made a depot for arms and armour found on 
the field of battle, but I was disappointed to find instead of 
those, relics of the field of Waterloo. If, however, the 
tower deceived me in this respect, it afforded me an advan- 
tage of another kind — a most clear and interesting view, 
both of the battle-field and of a vast stretch of country. 
Nothing could be more obvious than the situation of the 
battle. Below, on the campaign, at the distance of three 
miles, lay the little town of Kineton, and midway between 
it and Radway, just below, the spot where the battle took 
place. At that time the whole country round, with the 
exception of a few inclosures about Kineton and Radway, 



VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 311 

was open, now it is cultivated like a garden, and the hill 
side, down which the cavalry of the king rushed, is now 
covered with fine woods. 

Hume's concise account of this opening battle of the civil 
war, gives its main features in a little space. " The King, 
on mustering his army, found it to amount to two thousand 
men. The Earl of Lmdsey, who in his youth had sought 
experience of military service in the Low Countries, was 
general. Prince Rupert commanded the horse : Sir Jacob 
Astley the foot :* Sir Arthur Aston the dragoons : Sir John 
Heyden the artillery. Lord Bernard Stuart was at the head 
of a troop of guards. The estates and revenue of this sin- 
gle troop, according to Lord Clarendon's computation, were 
at least equal to those of all the members who, at the com- 
mencement of the war, voted in both houses. Their ser- 
vants, commanded by Sir William Killigrew, made another 
troop, and always marched with their masters. 

" With this army the king left Shrewsbury. . . . Two 
days after the departure of the royalists, Essex left Worces- 
ter. Though it be commonly easy, in civil war, to get in- 
telligence, the armies were within six miles of each other 
ere either of the generals was acquainted with the approach 
of his enemy. Shrewsbury and Worcester, the places from 
which they set out, are not above twenty miles distant ; yet 
had the two armies marched ten days in this mutual igno- 
rance. So much had military skill, during a long peace, 
decayed in England. 

" The royal army lay at Banbury ; that of the parliament 
at Kineton, in the county of Warwick. Prince Rupert sent 
intelligence of the enemy's approach. Though the day was 
far advanced, the king resolved upon the attack. Essex 

* The prayer and charge of Sir Jacob Astley on the commencement 
of this battle, have been much and justly admired — "O Lord! thou 
knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou for- 
get me. March on, boys !" 



312 VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 

drew up his men to receive him. Sir Faithful Fortescue, 
who had levied a troop for the Irish wars, had been obliged 
to serve in the parliamentary army, and was now posted 
on the left wing, commanded by Ramsay, a Scotchman. 
No sooner did the king's army approach, than Fortescue, 
ordering his troop to fire their pistols into the ground, put 
himself under the command of Prince Rupert. Partly from 
this incident, partly from the furious shock made upon them 
by the prince, the whole wing of cavalry immediately fled, 
and were pursued for two miles. The right wing of the 
parliament's army had no better success. Chased from 
their ground by Wilmot and Sir Arthur Aston, they also 
took to flight. The king's body of reserve, commanded by 
Sir John Biron, judging, like raw soldiers, that all was over, 
and impatient to have some share in the action, heedlessly 
followed the chase which their left wing had precipitately 
led them. Sir William Balfour, who commanded Essex's 
reserve, perceived the advantage. He wheeled about upon 
the king's infantry, now quite unfurnished of horse, and he 
made great havoc amongst them. Lindsey, the general, 
was mortally wounded, and taken prisoner ; his son, endea- 
vouring his rescue, fell likewise into the enemy's hands- 
Sir Edmund Verney, who carried the king's standard, was 
killed, and the standard taken, but it was afterwards re- 
covered. In this situation, Prince Rupert, on his return, 
found affairs. Everything bore the appearance of a defeat 
instead of a victory, with which he had hastily flattered 
himself. Some advised the king to leave the field ; but that 
prince rejected such pusillanimous counsel. The two armies 
faced each other for some time, and neither of them retained 
courage for a new attack. All night they lay under arms ; 
and next morning found themselves in sight of each other. 
General, as well as soldier, on both sides, seemed averse to 
renew the battle. Essex first drew off, and retired to War- 
wick. The king returned to his former quarters. Five 



VISIT TO EDGE-HELL. 313 

thousand men are said to have been found dead on the 
field of battle ; and the loss of the two armies, as far as we 
can judge by the opposite accounts, was nearly equal. Such 
was the event of this first battle, fought at Kineton, or Edge- 
hill. 

" Some of Essex's horse, who had been driven off the- 
field in the beginning of the action, flying to a great distance, 
carried news of a total defeat, and struck a mighty terror 
into the city and parliament. After a few days a more, 
just account arrived, and then the parliament pretended to 
a complete victory. The king also, on his part, was not 
wanting to display his advantages, though, excepting the 
taking of Banbury a few days after her, he had few marks 
of victory to boast of. He continued his march, and took 
possession of Oxford, the only town in his dominions which 
was altogether at his devotion." 

; To this we may add the following particulars from the 
historians of the times. The number of slain, although 
generally stated as above at five thousand, appears, by a 
survey taken by Mr. Fisher, the vicar of Kineton, at the 
time, at the request of the Earl of Essex, to have amounted 
to little more than thirteen hundred. These were buried in 
two spots which are yet conspicuous, one of them being 
planted with fir-trees. The copse of fir-trees is said to have 
been a pit at the time of the battle, into which five hundred 
bodies were thrown. The farm on which it is, is still called 
the Battle-farm ; and the two places of the burial, the 
Grave-fields. They lie about half-way between Radway 
and Kineton. 

The battle was fought October 23, 1642. It was Sunday. 
It was some time before the king was aware of the fate of 
Lord Lindsey ; when he discovered that he was wounded 
and in the hands of the enemy, he wished to send him a 
surgeon, but it was useless. That loyal and high-spirited 
nobleman, while life continued, did not cease to upbraid 

27 



314 VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 

the parliamentary officers about him with their treason and 
disaffection.* There is a curious letter, signed by Hollis, 
Stapleton, Ballad, Belfore, Meldrum, and Charles Pym, 
who were present in the action, addressed to John Pym, 
for the information of the Parliament, and which was printed 
five days after the battle, in which they attempt to account 
for the loss of the standard which the loyalist historians 
simply say " was recovered." They say that it was de- 
livered to the Lord General, and by him to his secretary, 
with an intention to send it back the next day to his ma- 
jesty ; "but the secretary, after he had long carried it in his 
hand, suffered it to be taken away by one of our troopers, 
and, as yet, ive cannot learn where it is." 

Near the Round-house, in the range of hill, is one place 
called Bullet-hill, from the vast quantity of bullets which 
have been taken out of it. It would appear, from its 
position, to have received the hottest fire of the parlia- 
mentary army. Within view also stands on the height the 
church of Burton-Dasset, which is supposed to be the place 
whence Cromwell viewed the battle. Hooper states that he 
was not in the battle ; afterwards excusing himself to the 
Earl of Essex, by alleging that he could not come up in 
time. He was then but a lieutenant or captain, and 
watching the action from a church-tower near, and see- 
ing the flight of the parliament cavalry, he slid down the 
bell-rope and rode off ; showing, as the historian remarks, 
what great endings may grow out of very indifferent 
beginnings. If such was the fact, Burton-Dasset seems the 
only place where it could have occurred. 

The two princes, Charles and James, were here, and the 
situation of their tent is laid down in old maps ; the boys are 
said to have watched the battle from the hill, and that 

* A fine portrait of this gallant nobleman, in Warwick Castle, is very 
expressive of his open-hearted and high-principled character. 



VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 315 

during the temporary defeat of the royal army, they might 
readily have been taken. In the village of Radway, at the 
foot of the hill, is a cottage in which tradition says the king 
and the princes breakfasted on the morning after the battle, 
and an old table was formerly shown as the one they used, 
but it has been sold as a relic. In the church is also a 
tablet to the memory of an officer who fell there. 

In the night after the battle, and during which both 
armies continued under arms, came a severe frost, with a 
most bitter wind from the north ; and any one who stands on 
that height in winter, and feels how keenly the air comes 
sweeping over the wide open champaign from that quarter, 
will not wonder that in the morning neither army felt much 
desire to renew the contest. I was there but ten days 
earlier in the season than the anniversary of the battle, and 
a heavy snow-storm driving fiercely for two hours, made me 
feel sympathetically what must have been the sufferings of 
the hundreds who lay in their wounds on the open field ; yet 
to this very circumstance the preservation of the lives of 
numbers was attributed, the cold stopping their bleeding, 
when they otherwise must have died of exhaustion. S uch 
are the miserable comforts of miserable war. 

There is no circumstance, however, connected with this 
melancholy field, so striking, in my opinion, as the one thus 
related by Dr. Thomas, in his Additions to Dugdale. 

" As King Charles I. marched to Edgecot, near Banbury, 
on the 22d of October, 1642, (the day previous to the battle,) 
he saw a gentleman hunting in the fields not far from Shuck- 
burgh, with a very good pack of hounds; upon which, 
fetching a deep sigh, he asked who that gentleman was, 
that hunted so merrily that morning, when he was going to 
fight for his crown and dignity. And being told that it was 
Richard Shuckburgh of Upper Shuckburgh, he was ordered 
to be called to him, and was by him very graciously re- 
ceived. Upon which he immediately went home, aroused 



316 VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 

all his tenants, and the next day attended on him in the 
field, where he was knighted, and was present at the battle. 
After the taking of Banbury, and his majesty's retreat from 
those parts, he went to his own seat, and fortified himself 
on the top of Shuckburgh-hill. Here he was soon attacked 
by some of the parliamentary forces, and defended himself 
till he fell, with most of his tenants about him ; but being 
taken up, and life perceived in him, he was carried away 
prisoner to Kenil worth Castle, where he lay a consider- 
able time, and was forced to purchase his liberty at a dear 
rate." 

As if the disastrous fortunes of the Stuarts had fallen on 
this warm-hearted gentleman, who was thus " hunting so 
merrily on the morning when the unhappy Charles was 
going to fight for his crown," and who so readily aban- 
doned his happy life at the call of his king, they not only 
clung to him through life in all their bitterness, but seemed 
to descend to his posterity. Charles II. rewarded the son, 
John de Shuckburgh, by creating him a baronet in 1660, 
and another of his descendants distinguished himself in 
three successive parliaments and by his philosophical and 
astronomical attainments, contributing as a member of the 
Royal Society many valuable papers to its " Philosophical 
Transactions ;" but so recently as 1809, a catastrophe befell 
this family, of a nature to leave its memory for ages on the 
scene of its occurrence. We may close this tragic chapter 
with this most tragic event. 

It appears that the Bedfordshire militia was stationed 
somewhere in that neighbourhood, and the officers were in 
the habit of visiting Shuckburgh Hall. They were received 
by its hospitable owner, Sir Stewkley Shuckburgh, with the 
cordiality of a warm-hearted English gentleman. His son 
was an officer in the army, and that might be an additional 
motive to the social intercourse which was thus opened to 
the mutual satisfaction of the parties — a set of intelligent 



VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 317 

officers always finding the doors of a charming house open 
to them, with an agreeable family, which they served to 
enliven by their occasional presence. But there was a 
danger to the younger gentlemen there, which, in such 
places and under such circumstances, is apt to become 
irresistible in its operation. The daughter of Sir Stewkley, 
then about twenty years of age, was a young lady whose 
attractions, both of person and mind, would not have been 
safely encountered in the brightest scenes, and amid the 
concourse of the most beautiful of her sex. But there, in 
the solitude of an old English country-house, and the 
charms of a pleasant neighbourhood ; a fine old park, and 
the cheerful conversations of a familiar fireside ; strolls 
through pleasant shrubberies, and loiterings in gardens ; the 
fascinations of so lovely and intelligent a young lady as Miss 
Shuckburgh produced their natural effect. Lieutenant 
Sharp, a young and enthusiastic officer, became deeply 
attached to her. As he was received by her father as a 
guest, with the utmost kindness, there was every opportu- 
nity for his cultivating her good opinion. A mutual 
attachment commenced, a correspondence was entered into ; 
the young people seemed likely to carry their friendship into 
a strong and lasting affection ; but the moment Sir Stewkley 
was made aware of it, he gave it his decided disapproval. 
The young lady, though evidently entertaining the most 
favourable feeling towards the youth, listened to the reasons 
of her father, and resolved to sacrifice her own inclination 
to the maturer judgment of her parents. The lieutenant 
was forbidden the house, and Miss Shuckburgh communi- 
cated to him her intention to submit her own wishes to the 
wishes of her father. Firmly persisting in this determina- 
tion, because she was persuaded that her father's motives 
were neither frivolous nor arbitrary, it was at length agreed 
between the young people that the intercourse should cease, 
and the letters which had passed should be returned. It 

37* 



318 VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 

was arranged between them that she should leave the packet 
for him, in a summer-house in the garden, on the evening of 
Saturday the 25th of March, 1809 ; and that, on the follow- 
ing morning, she should find that for her in the same place. 
Early, therefore, on that Sunday morning, she was observed 
by a servant taking the way towards the summer-house. 
The unusual hour, and probably a knowledge of what had 
taken place in the family on the subject of this attachment, 
attracted the attention of the servant. He followed stealthily, 
and as he drew near the summer-house, his suspicions were 
confirmed. He heard the voices of Lieutenant Sharp and 
of Miss Shuckburgh in earnest dispute. The officer was 
loud and impassioned, — the lady firm but deprecating. 
This was instantly followed by the discharge of a pistol, 
and the fall of a body, and as quickly by another discharge 
and another fall. The servant, divining the fatal truth, now 
flew to the house and gave the alarm. On entering the 
summer-house, these unhappy young people were found 
dead, and weltering in their blood. Mr. Sharp had no 
doubt been lingering on the premises all night, and had 
come prepared to see Miss Shuckburgh, and, if he could 
not bend her from her resolve, to destroy both himself and 
her. He had only too terribly obeyed the dictates of his 
passion and despair. 

Such is one version of the story ; but by others, it was 
deemed more probable that this fearful event was the re- 
sult of a mutual agreement between the lovers. The father 
of Lieutenant Sharp, though he had placed his son in the 
Bedfordshire militia, was only a gentleman farmer, residing 
at the Priory-farm, near Bedford ; and therefore it probably 
was that Sir Stewkley Shuckburgh did not deem the youth 
of sufficient standing or property to match with his daughter. 
Lieutenant Sharp was a young man of fine person, of a gay 
disposition, and much admired. It was therefore supposed 
that Miss Shuckburgh, seeing the opposition of her father to 



VISIT TO EDGE-HILL. 31 9 

be insurmountable, the lovers agreed thus to fall together, 
rather than to abandon their attachment ; but, in both sup- 
positions, more was imagined than was positively known. 
A certain degree of mystery must for ever hang over the 
affair. 

Since then, every object about the place which could 
suggest to the memory this fatal event, has been changed 
or removed. The summer-house has been rased to the 
ground, the disposition of the garden itself altered, much of 
the timber felled, the surrounding scenery remodelled, the 
house itself renovated. In the opinion of those who knew 
the place before, the whole has been much improved. The 
house is large and handsome ; the park is pleasant and well 
stocked with deer. It is probable that these efforts to ob- 
literate the remembrance of so fearful a catastrophe from 
the minds of the family, may not have been without their 
salutary effect ; but such tragic passages in human life be- 
come part and parcel of the scene where they occur ; — they 
become the topic of the winter fire-side. They last while 
passions and affections, youth and beauty, last. They fix 
themselves into the soil, and the very rock on which it lies. 
They are breathed from the woods and fields around on 
the passer by, like the dim whispers of Pan, or his watching 
fawns ; and, though the house were rased from the spot, 
and its park and pleasaunces turned into ploughed fields, it 
would still be said for ages, — here stood Shuckburgh-hall, 
and here fell the young and lovely Miss Shuckburgh, by the 
hand of her despairing lover ! 



VISIT TO THE GREAT JESUIT COLLEGE OF 
STONYHURST IN LANCASHIRE. 

A College of Jesuits, existing in England in the nineteenth 
century, possessing a large property there, and nourishing, 
and proselyting the inhabitants all around them — this is a 
subject of curious interest ! There is something in the very 
name of it that makes us prick up our ears, and open our 
eyes, and prepare to inquire and to wonder. At all events 
— after having read the annals of Romish persecution, the 
history of Inquisitions, and of this most subtle and distin- 
guished Order itself, — this was and has long been the effect 
upon me. When, years ago, I heard that there was a 
Jesuits* college at Stonyhurst, my curiosity was strongly 
aroused. To imagine the disciples of Ignatius Loyola 
erecting their standard amid the spinners and weavers of 
Lancashire — the fathers of that famous order which had 
figured so conspicuously in the dark annals of the Inquisi- 
tion ; which had insinuated its members into every country 
and city — into the eabinets and councils of all kings ; which 
had so often directed the political power of Europe, traversed 
the vast lands of India and America, and moulded savage 
nations to its designs ; of that order so awful in history for 
its peculiar policy, its sagacity, and its talent, coming out 
into the face of the English people, into the full blaze of the 
freest opinion, into the very midst of the jealous and search- 
ing scrutiny of Protestant sectaries — was a moral pheno- 
menon worthy of close attention. 

One was curious to see what system of action these Pro- 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 321 

teus-like priests assumed ; what were the political and social 
maxims they professedly held ; by what links and lines of 
sympathy, or, at least, of accordance, they sought to connect 
themselves with a population alive with the spirit of freedom 
it all its shapes — in religion, in commerce, and in govern- 
ment. Accordingly, Mrs. Howitt and myself took the op- 
portunity, on our way northwards, to visit this interesting 
place. We went thither from Blackburn, where we were 
spending a short time with our friends ; and found it a de- 
lightful drive of ten miles, principally along Ribblesdale, in 
which Stonyhurst is situated. After proceeding about two 
and a half miles north of Blackburn, Ribblesdale, one of the 
finest and most extensive vales in England, opened upon 
us, with Stonyhurst conspicuous on the opposite side of the 
valley, on a fine elevation, amidst its woods. The building 
has a noble and commanding aspect, worthy of its situation. 
It was apparently about three or four miles distant, and I 
suppose, was not much more ; one of the Jesuits afterwards 
telling us that they considered it by the footpath, a pretty 
direct line, to be about seven miles between Stonyhurst and 
Blackburn ; but the carriage road is very circuitous, holding 
down the valley as far as Wh alley, and then along wind- 
ing lanes through Mitton ; so that it proves a good ten miles. 
But whoever takes the drive, will not think it one yard too 
much ; a more delightful one can rarely be found. From 
the first opening of this splendid vale, you have Stonyhurst 
lying full in view ; Ribchester, the celebrated Roman station, 
to the left, in the level of the valley ; down the vale to the 
north-east, you have the castle of Clitheroe, standing on its 
bold and abrupt eminence ; and as you wind along the east- 
ern side of the dale, with the Ribble below you on your left, 
and above you on your right, woods and cottages with their 
little inclosures, the ruins of Whalley Abbey come in 
view, and, high beyond, the bare and cloud-mottled heights 
of Pendle-hill. The ruins of Whalley Abbey, made so fa- 



322 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

milliar to the public by Dr. Whittaker's history, are still very 
extensive and picturesque. Old walls mingled with large 
trees ; large windows here and there visible, still displaying 
their tracery ; a house with smoking chimneys in the midst ; 
and the Calder,a beautiful stream between high banks, run- 
ning close past — present a very attractive whole to a passer- 
by. Here we crossed a bridge and wound away to the left, 
in a circuitous course, to Stonyhurst ; in fact, going, in a 
great measure, backward again. The lanes through which 
we drove were fine old pastoral lanes, all embowered with 
tall luxuriant hedges, rich with fresh foliage, and sweet with 
the flowers of the elder and the wild rose. 

It was the time of roses ; 

We plucked them as we passed. — Hood: 

for it was, in fact, the 29th of June. So we drove on, 
every few yards catching a peep into fields full of grass, or 
glimpses of fine uplands, distant hills, and hanging woods. 
On our left, lying low amongst tall trees, appeared Little 
Mitton manor-house — one of those quaint, ancient, tim- 
bered houses with which Lancashire abounds. This is re- 
markable for its galleried hall of the age of Henry VII., of 
which an engraving may be found in Whittaker. All about 
us, as we ascended to the greater Mitton, or the Mitton, 
were green and whispering trees, and peeps into meadows 
rich with cattle; and the sound of the two rivers — the 
Hodder and the Ribble, which unite just below — came up 
to us delightfully. Mitton is as singularly as it is sweetly 
situated, on a point of land in the West Riding of Yorkshire 
which runs into Lancashire betwixt those streams ; and it 
is a spot at which I must request my readers to pause a 
moment, not merely because in it lie the greater part of the 
Sherburne family, the ancient lords of Stonyhurst, but be- 
cause the village and church of Mitton are, of themselves, 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 333 

highly worthy of a visit from the lovers of antiquity and of 
rural peace and seclusion. The place is one of the most 
perfect " Nooks of the World ;" one of those places that, 
however all the country around them be revolutionized by 
manufactures and politics, stand, save for the ravages of 
time on their buildings, as they stood ages ago. It is most 
absolutely Old English. The slumber of a summer noon 
lies there profoundly as a trance. The low of cattle from a 
neighbouring croft, or the hum of a passing bee, seem the 
only living sounds. The village consists of a few old farm- 
houses — one of which is a dilapidated monastery — the 
usual diversification of a blacksmith's shop, a wheelwright's 
shop, the parsonage, and little garden cottages. It stands 
surrounded with a profusion of trees. The church is a plain, 
unpretending structure, with a low square tower ; but it 
delights you as you approach with the green sequestered 
beauty of its churchyard, and on your entrance, with such 
a group of efflgied tombs as few village churches can show. 

We found the old sexton in his little cottage by the church- 
yard gate, supping his porridge, to use a Lancashire phrase 
— for it was twelve o'clock ; but on stating our desire to see 
the church, he set down his porringer, and reached the keys. 
The man himself was a character worth knowing. He ap- 
peared very old, with a face that evidently had been a good 
one, and that now exhibited much shrewdness and sense of 
office. He was corpulent, and bound his waist about with 
a cord. He was so asthmatic that he could hardly breathe, 
and yet, when we asked his age, he replied — 0, I'mnubbut 
eighty-five !" He seemed, indeed, to regard himself as 
quite a youth, though he had been clerk sixty-four years, 
had seen two or three clergymen out, and had copied in- 
scriptions, and held a deal of intercourse with Dr. Whittaker, 
the historian of Whaliey, respecting the antiquities of this 
church. 

On entering the churchyard, the very first object was one 



324 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

which spoke greatly in favour of the old man. It was the 
tomb of the late vicar, surrounded with a spacious railing, 
and within the railing, planted with a hedge of evergreens, 
bays, junipers, box and arbor-vitae. He told us that the 
former clergyman had been very fond of evergreens, and 
so he had planted these about his tomb, as he had no sur- 
viving relatives on the spot to show this respect to his 
memory. The shrubs had grown bravely ; and he had 
clipped them square, like a green wall round the tomb, and 
cut them low at its foot, so as to allow the inscription to be 
read. The bottom of this verdant screen was newly weeded. 
He always weeded and clipped it once a year, he said ; he 
had been doing it these last few days, but he had not yet 
had time " to ready the weeds and clippings away " — and 
there they lay. 

As the old man applied his key to a door on the north 
side of the church, we observed the effigy of a knight, in 
free-stone, lying close to the wall. " Yes/' said he, " you 
must notice that, and when you come out of the church, 
notice it again." He opened the door ; and the sight of the 
white marble tombs, and their extended figures, was very 
striking. They were the tombs and effigies of the Sher- 
burnes, executed by William Stanton, and mentioned by 
Whittaker in his history of Whalley ; but which our worthy 
sexton described in a way very peculiar to himself, and one 
infinitely more graphic and piquant. They were evidently 
the pride of his heart; and no wonder — for such an assem- 
blage of marble tombs and recumbent figures, I suppose, 
scarcely another country church in England can boast. 

The old man, like other show-people, had his story by 
rote ; and taking his stand before every successive monu- 
ment, gave his account of it, and read off the inscription — 
Latin or English, legible or illegible, no matter. The first 
to which he turned, was, in fact, what he should have 
shown last, because it was in memory of the last direct male 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 325 

descendant of the Sherburnes ; but it was a pathetic sub- 
ject, and no doubt strongly attracted his sympathies. It was 
an alto relievo of white marble. " This/' said he, pointing 
to the centre figure, a graceful boy, " was the only son of 
Sir Nicholas Sherburne ; and these," showing two chubby 
lads on either hand, " were two poor lads that he took to be 
his playfellows ; and they went to play in the gardens, 
when green fruit was rife, and he eat something that was 
poison, and died at nine years of age. Here you see the 
poor lads weeping for him, and the tears are running down 
their faces, as natural as life ; here the angels are cutting 
down lilies and roses with their sickles — the lilies mean 
that he was cut off in his innocence, and the roses in his 
youth ; here the hour-glass, with the sand run out, shows 
that time to him was no more ; and here the angels are re- 
ceiving his soul into heaven. That is a very affecting 
thing." 

But one specimen of our worthy cicerone's style must 
suffice. We must make shorter work of it than he did, and 
restrict our attention to a few particulars, characteristic of 
the cemetery of an old English family. There are three 
tombs, with recumbent figures of knights and their ladies, 
executed with great spirit, especially one lady, who is really 
beautiful. But the most singular monument is one of 
Richard Sherburne, and his lady, who died in childbed of 
twins, while he was Captain of the Isle of Man, in 1591, 
" and there lieth entombed." " That," said the sexton, " is 
Old Fiddle-o'-God and his wife. He went by that name, 
because, when he was in a passion, that was his word." 
The pair were kneeling aloft on the monument, at an altar, 
opposite each other, in prayer, clad and coloured in the 
quaint style of that age — he in his ruff and full-skirted 
jerkin ; she in a black gown and hood, falling over the top 
of her head, and with tan-leather gloves on her arms. On 
the compartments below are seen the twins in bed, with 

28 



326 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

their nurses watching by them ; and not far off, monks 
praying for the lady's soul. However passionate and pro- 
fane the old gentleman might be (and not only his speech 
betrays as much, but the inscription itself seems to confirm 
it, praying most heartily for them — " Whose souls God 
pardon ; grant them His heavenly pardon,") yet he has a 
most ludicrously pious look on the monument. 

There are two inscriptions by the Duchess Dowager of 
Norfolk, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Sherburne, which are 
perfect specimens of the manner in which great families 
glorify themselves in their own churches, over the very pit 
of corruption, which one would think enough to confound 
all human greatness. The first is to her parents, and con- 
veys a curious picture of the times : — " Sir Nicholas Shire- 
burn was a man of great humanity, sympathy, and concern 
for the good of mankind, and did many good charitable 
things whilst he lived : he particularly set his neighbour- 
hood a-spinning of Jersey wool, and provided a man to 
comb the wool, and a woman who taught them to spin, 
whom he kept in his house, and allotted several rooms he 
had in one of the courts of Stonihurst, for them to work in ; 
and the neighbours came to spin accordingly. The spin- 
ners came every day, and span as long a time as they could 
spare, morning and afternoon, from their families : this conti- 
nued from April, 1 6 9 9, to August, 1701. When they had all 
learned, he gave the nearest neighbours each a pound or 
half a pound of wool ready for spinning, and wheel, to set 
up for themselves ; which did a vast deal of good to that 
north side of Ribble, in Lancashire. Sir Nicholas Sherburn 
died December 15, 1717. This monument was set up by 
the Dowager Duchess of Northfolk, in memory of the best 
of fathers and mothers, and in this vault designs to be in- 
terred herself, whenever it pleases God to take her out of 
this world." 

" Lady Sherburn was a lady of excellent temper and fine 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 327 

sentiment, singular piety, virtue, and charity ; constantly 
employed in doing good, especially to the distressed, sick, 
poor, and lame, for whom she kept an apothecary's shop in 
the house. She continued as long as she lived doing great 
good and charity. She died January 27, 1722. Besides 
all other great charities which Sir Nicholas and Lady Sher- 
burn did, they gave, on All- Souls-day, a considerable deal 
of money to the poor ; Lady Sherburn serving them with 
her own hands that day." 

But this is nothing to the monumental testimony to the Ho- 
nourable Peregrin Widderington. In this vault lies the body 
of the Honourable Peregrin Widderington. The Honour- 
able Peregrin Widderington was youngest son of William 
Lord Widderington, who died April 17th, 1743. This Pere- 
grin was a man of the strictest friendship, and honour, with 
all the good qualities that accomplish a fine gentleman ; he 
was of so amiable a disposition, and so engaging, that he 
was beloved and esteemed by all who had the honour and 
happiness of his acquaintance, being ever ready to oblige 
and to act the friendly part on all occasions ; firm and stead- 
fast in all his principles — which were delicately fine and 
good as could be wished in any man — he was both sincere 
and agreeable in life and conversation. He was born May 
20th, 1692, and died February 4th, 1748-9. He was with 
his brother in the Preston affair (1716,) where he lost his 
fortune, with his health, by a long confinement in prison. 
This monument was set up by the Dowager Dutches of Nor- 
folk, in memory of the Honourable Peregrin Widderington." 

" What ! was this her second husband ?" we inquired. 

" Ay," said the old man, with a knowing look, " her 
tally husband — and that makes a difference !"* 

* A provincialism for a lady's choice not sanctioned by the priest. 
So suited in their minds and persons, 
That they were framed the tallies of each other. — Dryden. 



328 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

The rest of the interior of the church is old and mean. 
This aisle, with its proud monuments, separated by a 
screen, stands in strange contrast, and makes it seem a place 
where the Sherburnes have the glory rather than God. 
The old man now led the way to a curious ancient cross in 
the church-yard, and to the tomb of a monk, whose hon- 
oured head is still visible upon it ; and then to the freestone 
effigy under the windows of the Sherburne aisle. The 
origin of it, he said, was this : — When the monuments of 
the Sherburnes came down from London, they were, of 
course, the wonder and the talk of the whole country. A 
common stonemason, as he sate by the alehouse fire at 
Hurst's-Green, hearing the company extolling them, said, 
" 0, he would undertake to cut out as good in common 
stone." The whole place was scandalised at the man's ar- 
rogance ; it was carried to the hall. The man was sent for, 
and desired to make good his boast, under penalty of for- 
feiting their employment for ever if he failed. He was to 
take only one view of the figure he pitched upon ; and 
twelve months were allowed him to finish it in. "And 
there it is," said the sexton, "as like as pea to pea." The 
man had done it long before the year was up ; and so sur- 
prised were the Sherburnes, that they gave him 20l. and 
allowed it to be laid under the window of the aisle. 

We must now hasten to Stonyhurst College — for we 
have stopped long by the way; but who would not stop 
awhile at such a pleasant, antiquated place as Mitton? Let 
my readers look upon it as a distinct episode in this account. 
We have seen where the Sherburnes lie — let us now see 
where they lived ; and we cannot give a better general 
idea of the place than by transcribing the clear and succinct 
description of it by Mr. Baines, in his " History of Lan- 
cashire." 

" In the year 1794, the stately mansion of Stonyhurst was 
fixed upon as the seat of an English Roman-Catholic col- 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 329 

lege. The heads of that college having been driven from 
their establishment at Liege by the proscriptions of the 
French Revolution, were induced, in consequence of the 
judicious mitigation of the penal enactments in England 
against Catholic seminaries, to seek an asylum in their native 
country. A long lease was accordingly obtained of the 
house and of the college farm, on moderate terms, from the 
late Thomas Weld, Esq. The mansion they found much 
dilapidated from time and neglect ; but it is now in a state 
of complete repair, and they have raised, at a great expense, 
a large and handsome new building, with a south-east 
aspect, forming a house admirably adapted for the purpose 
of education. 

"In the upper stories are the dormitories, where each 
student has his little apartment. The next story consists of 
the apartments for the professors and teachers. Below, are 
the chambers of the president and other directors, with the 
hall of study and philosophical room ; the former, of seventy- 
eight feet by twenty feet, is fitted up with desks and benches 
for two hundred and twenty scholars ; but they do not at 
present amount to that number. A high throne or pulpit 
for the prefect, who has the charge of the young gentlemen 
at their studies, stands against the wall in the central part of 
the room, so as to command a view of each student. This 
place is devoted to study exclusively. Not a word is ex- 
changed between the students during the hours allotted to 
study. The philosophical apparatus-room is forty-eight feet 
by thirty-three broad ; it is ornamented with a rich deep 
frieze ; and the instruments which are used in the illustration 
of the different branches of natural philosophy, are deposited 
in this room. A fine painting, by Annibal Caracci, of the 
taking down of the Saviour from the Cross, hangs over the 
fireplace. The exhibition-room is connected with this 
apartment by sliding doors. This room is adapted for 

28* 



330 VISIT TO STONYHUKST. 

classical or philosophical exhibitions — and such exhibitions 
are frequent in the college. 

" On the ground-floor are the seven school or class rooms, 
where the respective scholars of each class recite to their 
several masters the lessons which they have learned in the 
study, and receive lectures. The play-rooms, lavatory, 
drawing-room, music-room, and dancing-gallery, are also on 
this floor. Every duty has its own fixed time, place, and 
superintendent. The library is a handsome, but small room. 
It contains amongst other valuable works, some highly illu- 
minated manuscripts, the prayer-book of the queen of 
Henry VII., and the office in honour of the blessed Virgin, 
which belonged to the persecuted Queen of Scots. There 
are also here two or three vellum missals, and several 
black-letter books ; a copy of St. John's Gospel ; a manu- 
script of the seventh century, found in the tomb of St. 
Cuthbert ; with two sculptures in ivory, and a painted 
crucifix < — all by Michael Angelo ; also, a chest of coins and 
medals, medallions of the popes, etc. 

" The museum is between the western towers ; and con- 
tains, among many other interesting subjects, the private 
seals of James II. and Fenelon ; the embroidered cap of 
Sir Thomas More ; his seal when Under-Treasurer ; and 
his original George* when Lord Chancellor, with this in- 
scription — ' passi graviora dabit his quoque finem ;' 
several remarkable vases, pixes, and crosses ; with a number 
of transatlantic curiosities, presented by C. Waterton, Esq. 
of Walton Hall, in the county of York ; a good collection 
of minerals and shells ; bronze casts of the Caesars, and 
plaster casts of the martyrdom of the Apostles ; and the 
cabinet of the learned Queen Christina of Sweden. The 
merits and promise of this museum, are not known, or we 
should find here more monuments of Roman antiquity from 

* A figure of St. George, worn by the Knights of the Garter. 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 331 

Ribchester. A Roman altar, dedicated to the mother god- 
desses, by a captain of the Asturias, has, however, been 
lately rescued from the rubbish of a neighbouring farm-yard, 
and now stands on more classical ground, in the garden of 
Stonyhurst. This rare piece of antiquity proves to be the 
identical altar which the venerable Camden, in 1603, saw 
near Ribchester. The altar is thirty-three inches high, by 
twenty-two inches broad, and the inscription at length may 
be read thus : — 

Dis Matribus Marcus Ingenuius Asiaticus Decurio 
Ala Astrum sxjsceptum solvit libens lubens Merito. 

" The recreation-hall of the professors is a magnificent 
gallery, ninety feet by twenty, in the old house, running 
parallel with the study ; the grand tapestry of which room 
was renewed by the Duke of Norfolk. The refectory, which 
is of the dimensions of sixty feet by twenty, was the baronial 
hall of the Sherburnes ; its ceiling, frieze, and floor, are 
magnificent. The new building is three hundred feet long, 
and fronts the extensive playground and gardens. The 
public rooms in the new, as well as in the old buildings, 
are constructed on a noble scale. The area of the house, 
playgrounds, and gardens, comprises a space about equal 
to that on which stood Roman Ribchester — upwards of ten 
acres. 

" Such is the college in which many of the sons of the 
Catholic nobility and gentry of this country are educated. 
Here they are taught to respect and cherish the laws and 
constitution of their country, and to place a due estimate 
upon the advantages of a polite and classical education. 

" The character of the population, like that of the lands 
round the college, is much improved during the last thirty 
years ; and many of the poor of the neighbourhood are fed 
and clothed by the institution. The political importance of 
large Catholic establishments of this kind, is well known to 



332 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

the legislature ; and wise was that monarch and that parlia- 
ment which relaxed the severity of the penal laws, and 
invited the Catholic exiles from foreign countries and col- 
leges, to spend their fortunes and their lives in their own 
country. 

" The stately pile of Stonyhurst, with its towers and park- 
like grounds, forms a magnificent object to the whole of the 
surrounding country ; and the prospects which it commands 
are bold, rich, and beautiful. Eastward, appears the pic- 
turesquely-wooded valleys of the Hodder and the Kibble ; 
the castle of Clitheroe is seen crowning the summit of an 
insulated hill ; and the vast mass of Pendle closes the view. 
Southward, appear the high grounds of Blackburn parish, 
and the windings of the Ribble towards Ribchester. The 
principal part of the edifice is to the west ; looking over the 
park and grounds, which are ornamented with clumps of 
plantation. The geographical situation of Stonyhurst is ten 
miles to the north of Blackburn, the post-town of the esta- 
blishment, and is equi-distant from Clitheroe, Walley, and 
Ribchester. 

" On the south angle of the front of the college, a large 
and handsome Catholic church or chapel is now erecting, 
partly by subscription and partly out of the college funds, 
in the Tudor style of architecture, after a design by J. J. 
Scholes, Esq. The first stone of the structure was laid in 
1S32 ; and it will, when finished, be dedicated to St, Peter." 

On approaching this interesting place, we found two 
roads, one diverging to the right, the other to the left. We 
took the right, which led us through pleasant, bowery lanes 
— the fine buildings showing themselves ever and anon, 
over the trees — to the lodges, the usual way of entrance. 
Here visiters are expected to use the hospitality of the place, 
by giving their horses and carriages into the hands of the 
groom, who takes all possible care of them during their stay. 
As we were, however, not aware of this circumstance, we 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 333 

drove on, by a winding route, to Hurst's-Green ; a little 
hamlet, about half a mile from the college. We found 
here, that the road diverging to the left from Mitton is the 
direct way to Hurst's-Green, where those who are not in- 
clined to tax the hospitality of the establishment so much, 
will find a good village inn, where their horses will be well 
accommodated. We can only say, however, that, when the 
heads of the college found that we had not brought our 
horses to their stable, they expressed the greatest concern. 

The approach from Hurst's-Green is a pleasant walk, 
and gives you the fullest and finest view of the college. 
Advancing from the green, you pass several comfortable 
cottages, and then through a gate, which brings you into 
the lawn in front of the house ; but at the distance of a quarter 
of a mile. But, before passing through this gate, you come 
to a charming little cemetery, belonging to the hamlet and 
neighbourhood, with a plain but very tasteful oratory, with 
a bell. The ground is adorned with a white cross, and a few 
scattered tombs of simple and appropriate style, and graves 
planted with shrubs and flowers. This rural cemetery stands 
well, giving wide views of the country round — of Pendle 
in one direction, and the wild uplands of Bowland Forest 
in another ; and is screened and skirted with trees, with 
good effect. Here, in winter and bad weather, the fu- 
neral rites are performed for the deceased, by one of the 
fathers of Stonyhurst, in the oratory ; but in summer and 
fine weather, in the open air. The poetical, and, I trust, 
the religious effect, must be strong, of such a funeral in such 
a place. The single bell from this fair, but solitary grave- 
yard, calling, over hill and dale, with its solemn voice, the 
dead to his place ; and the weeping forms, the funeral gar- 
ments, and the impressive rites of Christian sepulture, thus 
witnessed in the face of heaven, and the beauties of that 
earth which shall know him who has departed "no more 
for ever" — must, one thinks, exercise a strong and even 



334 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

soothing influence, under such circumstances, over the hu- 
man spirit. 

Turning away from this cemetery, and entering upon the 
lawn, the view of Stonyhurst in very impressive. It is a 
house which accords well with the style of its former lords 
in Mitton church. You see that it was worthy of the Sher- 
burnes. The grounds, woods, and waters about its solitary 
stateliness belong strictly to the " old English gentleman." 
You see that it was not unnatural for the lords and ladies of 
such a place to take to themselves some credit for " their 
sympathy and concern for the good of mankind," and for 
" the many good, charitable things which they did while 
they lived." You could not avoid thinking of Lady Sher- 
burne now, not as the tenant of a tomb, but as the living 
lady of this noble mansion ; and then, for " a lady of ex- 
cellent temper and fine sentiments," inhabiting such a house, 
it really did not seem too much to glorify her condescen- 
sion in giving money away, " on All-Saints-day, with her 
own hands." One thought of those delicate hands, busy 
amongst her cordials and plasters, " for the poor and lame, 
for whom she kept an apothecary's shop in the house ;" and 
then, calling to mind the many stately mansions and stately 
parks now-a-days, where the fair and highborn shut them- 
selves up from the intrusion of their own poor neighbours, 
during the few months in the year that they dwell amongst 
them ; and calling to mind, at the same time, the poor men 
removed from their cottages, and imprisoned in some mon- 
strous Poor-Law prison — and truly, the eulogium of her 
Duchess-daughter became worthy of being carved with " an 
iron pen, and with lead in the rock." 

An avenue of noble trees formerly skirted the carriage- 
road, which runs directly up the lawn to the house. That 
is gone ; but woods on either hand of the lawn still form a 
wider kind of avenue, at the end of which appears this tall 
building, with its large entrance gateway in the centre, its 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 335 

large square windows, and two domed towers, surmounted 
with eagles. About half way up the lawn, a railing runs 
across, marking the more immediate approach ; and, on 
each hand, is a sheet of water. The house is in the style Of 
Paul of Padua, and is said by the Jesuit fathers to be the 
most perfect English specimen of that style. It was built 
in the reign of Elizabeth, on the site of the older edifice, by 
Sir Richard Sherburne, who received the honour of knight- 
hood for his bravery in the battle of Leith, and was so great 
a favourite of her majesty that she allowed him to have his 
chapel and his priest at Stonyhurst. He did not, however, 
live to finish it ; and the cupolas of the towers were added 
by Sir Nicholas Sherburne, at a cost of 40/. ! as is shown 
by the deed of contract still existing at Stonyhurst. Sir 
Nicholas was a travelled scholar ; and by him the gardens 
and grounds were laid out in the French taste ; and he was 
preparing to complete the half-finished building, when he 
lost his only son, Richard Francis, who died in the year 
1702, at the age of nine years, and in the manner already 
related. This severe domestic bereavement so affected him 
that he abandoned his design. His only daughter, Maria 
Winifreda Francisca, married Thomas, the eighth Duke of 
Norfolk, and died without issue in the year 176S. The 
family possessions now passed to the children of Elizabeth, 
sister of Sir Nicholas, married to Sir William Weld, of 
Lulworth Castle, Dorsetshire ; and his eminence, Cardinal 
Weld, eldest son of the late Thomas Weld, Esq., of Lul- 
worth, inherited this noble mansion from his father. 

This family appears to have been always a staunch Ca- 
tholic one ; and Stonyhurst coming into the possession of a 
cardinal, one is not surprised that it should be alienated 
from the family, and converted to the service of the Catholic 
cause. The estate is now not merely leased, but sold to the 
founders of the college. 

Nothing could be more courteous than our reception, of 



336 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

more candid than the manner in which all answers to our 
inquiries, both regarding the place and the social and poli- 
tical views of the conductors, were given. We found the 
President, the Rev. Mr. Scott, was extremely ill at some 
other place — in fact, as was sppposed, and as it proved, at 
the point of death ; but two of the priests, Mr. Daniells and 
Mr. Irvine, received us most kindly. They apprised us 
that we had arrived on a day on which it was contrary to 
their custom to admit visiters — being no other than the 
anniversary of the dedication of their new church to St. 
Peter and St. Paul — but that they would gladly make an 
exception in our favour. They could not, indeed, both 
attend us, divine worship going on in the church the greater 
part of the day, and Mr. Daniells being now just going to 
celebrate mass ; but Mr. Irvine would show us the institu- 
tion during that time, and luncheon would be on the table 
at our return. Accordingly, we made the round of the 
house, and were struck with admiration at the general style 
and nobility of the place — its oaken floors, long galleries, 
paintings, ceilings, the library, the museum, the exhibition, 
and philosophical apparatus room, and all those relics and 
antiquarian remains which enrich it. The passing remarks 
which I have to make upon these may form a sort of run- 
ning commentary on Mr. Baines's statement above. The 
dormitories are large and airy rooms, every separate bed 
being enclosed within a screen, like the screens of a coffee- 
house ; and a large curtain is drawn in front, so that every 
boy, with the advantage of ample ventilation, possesses 
perfect privacy. The philosophical apparatus room and 
exhibition-room merit all the praise bestowed upon them ; 
they are noble rooms, and well furnished with orreries, gal- 
vanic batteries, a small steam-engine, mathematical instru- 
ments, and every requisite for scientific demonstrations. 
Besides the fine painting by Annibal Caracci, there is one 
of St. Catherine of Padua in the hospital, well worthy of 



VISIT TO STONYHUEST. 337 

attention, for the contrast of benignant beauty in the saint 
with the wretched and agonized forms around her. This 
room is also furnished with a noble organ. 

An excellent and effective mode of education is adopted 
here. After philosophical exhibitions in these rooms, and 
after silent reading in the hall of study, each class returns 
to the room of its particular teacher, and every boy is care- 
fully questioned upon what he has seen or read, so as to 
ascertain that he has clearly comprehended and made him- 
self master of the matter presented to his mind. The silence 
and decorum of the school are beautiful. At one moment, 
the sound of one hundred and sixty-six boys at play, in front 
of the college, came up to us ; — the next, we saw them 
marching to the hall of study ; and shortly afterwards, pass- 
ing the door, so profound was the hush, that we inquired 
whether it were not really empty. 

Amongst the relics and sculptures in the library, which 
are secured in a glass-case, the Prayer-Book, stated above 
to have belonged to the Queen of Scots, was asserted by 
Mr. Irvine to have belonged to Maria of England ; and 
that with good reason, — the words Maria Regina merely 
being written within the cover ; and amongst the emble- 
matical silver embossments on the binding, appearing the 
pomegranate, the emblem of Spain. The seals of James II., 
of Fenelon, and the cap, beads, seal, and reliquary of Sir 
Thomas More, were also at this time in the library. These 
relics of Sir Thomas More were given by Father More, the 
last of the family. Amongst the many interesting contents 
of the Museum, none are more striking than the quaint old 
jewel-chest of Queen Christina ; a large cup of crystal ; a curi- 
ous old ark surmounted with a cross ; and some old English 
MSS. written on long narrow strips of vellum. The re* 
creation-hall is indeed a magnificent gallery, and is embel- 
lished with a great number of paintings, amongst which is 
a very curious large Spanish piece, a portrait of Ignatius 

29 



338 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

Loyola, surrounded by those of almost every celebrated 
Jesuit. There is also a set of heads of the Apostles, very 
striking, and correspondent with their characters ; especially 
that of St. John, which is beautiful, and full of that spirit 
of love, which gave him the bosom-place with his Divine 
Master. The refectory is one of the finest baronia^ halls I 
have seen ; and the floors of this and other rooms are of 
oak, laid in squares, lozenges, and other figures, of a rich 
and antique beauty. This noble room had tables, seats, 
and other furniture then preparing for it, of a fashion ac- 
cordant with, and worthy of its old English magnificence. 
We proceeded from the house to view the playground and 
gardens. In the former, which has been taken from the 
gardens, we found one hundred and sixty-six boys at play 
— a fine set of lads, in all the eagerness and animation of 
their age — the sons of the principal Catholic nobility and 
gentry of England and Ireland. Charles Waterton and 
Sheil were educated here. 

With the exception of the piece taken for the playground, 
the gardens remain pretty much in the form in which they 
were laid out by Sir Nicholas Sherburne. They are de- 
lightful in themselves, and delightfully situated — looking 
out over that splendid valley, with its river, woods, uplands, 
and distant hills. It is the fashion to cry down all gardens 
as ugly and tasteless which are not shaped by our modern 
notions. The formalities of the French and Dutch have 
been sufficiently condemned. For my part, I like even 
them in their place. One would no more think of laying 
out grounds now in this manner than of wearing Eliza- 
bethan ruffs, or bob-wigs and basket-hilted swords ; but the 
old French and Dutch gardens, as appendages of a quaint 
old house, are, in my opinion, beautiful. They are like 
many other things — not so much beautiful in themselves, 
as beautiful by association, as memorials of certain charac- 
ters and ages. A garden, after all, is an artificial thing, and 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 339 

though framed from the materials of nature, may be 
allowed to mould them into something very different from 
nature. There is a wild beauty of nature, and there is a 
beauty in nature linked to art ; one looks for a very differ- 
ent kind of beauty in fields and mountains, to what one 
does in a garden. The one delights you by a certain rude 
freedom and untamed magnificence ; the other by smooth- 
ness and elegance — by velvet lawns, bowery arbours, 
winding paths, fair branching shrubs, fountains, and juxta- 
positions of many rare flowers. Who will say that Colonel 
Howard's Elizabethan house and old French gardens at 
Leven's Bridge are not beautiful ? — and who will say, 
when they have seen them, that the gardens of Stonyhurst 
are not so too ? 

In the centre is a capacious circular basin of water, in the 
midst of which stands a leaden figure of a man in chains, 
said to be Atilius Regulus. This basin abounds with gold, 
silver, and black fish. Near it a fine observatory was 
erecting, which would command an enviable prospect. At 
each lower extremity of the garden, overlooking the dale, 
is a summer-house of very beautiful form, with tall pointed 
roof, surmounted with eagles. Over each door is a gro- 
tesque head, and above it a very classical bas-relief vase, 
with wreaths of flowers and fruit falling on each side. One 
side of the garden is still divided by pleached walks of yew 
— in fact, tall screens or walls of yew, cut square, at least 
teen feet high, and four or five thick, and kept in fine order. 
From the observatory you see the whole plan of these 
fences ; but as you walk among them, you are enveloped 
in a most green and pleasant solitude. Arched doorways 
are cut through them, and you come, in one place, to a large 
circular inclosure, formerly occupied by a fountain, but now 
converted into a bowling-green. Thence you descend, by 
broad flights of easy steps, into a most solemn, cool, and 
twilight walk, formed by ancient, over-arching yews — a 



340 VISIT TO STONYHURS1V 

place, of all others, made for the meditations of the religious 
devotee. Reascending you pass into the air and sunshine, 
amongst cheerful trees and delicious flowers. Similar flights, 
at the opposite side of the garden, lead you to walls hung 
with fruit, and kitchen gardens calculated for such an es- 
tablishment. 

From the garden we passed into the new church ; an 
erection of great beauty, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, 
whose statues occupy niches on each side of the great wes- 
tern window, which is richly painted with the figures of the 
Saviour, the Virgin, St. John and the other Apostles. The 
church contains four altars decorated with considerable 
splendour ; the carving, which is very good, being princi- 
pally executed by a working mason of Preston. The dif- 
ferent parts of the church are copied from various celebrated 
ecclesiastical buildings : the pillars and arches forming the 
aisles, from St. Winifred's Well ; the figures of the saints, 
from Henry VII.'s chapel. The roof, and the organ of oak, 
are fine. 

This was the first anniversary of the opening of this 
church, and numbers of the country people were at mass. 
But, about forty years ago, when the Jesuits came here, 
they found the place a wilderness, having been uninhabited 
for some years. The lands were wild, and overgrown with 
rushes ; now they present an aspect of great cheerfulness 
and good farming. About fifty cows are kept to supply the 
establishment with milk and butter. The place, indeed, is 
a perfect rural paradise. 

We returned to the house, and found, instead of a lun- 
cheon, an excellent hot dinner awaiting us. Mr. Daniells, 
having now terminated his labours in the chapel, joined us, 
and our conversation naturally turned upon their peculiar 
position here, their success, and the general condition of 
Catholicism in England and Ireland. We joked them on 
the casuistry and duplicity of the Jesuits, and on their gal- 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 341 

lantry to the ladies, no women being suffered to sleep under 
the roof. All this they took in very good part, as Jesuits 
ought to do, only saying — 

" Ah, indeed, Jesuits are dreadful fellows. General 
Johnstone," said one of them, " with a young friend of his, 
was, some time ago, obliged to pass the night here in con- 
sequence of his chaise not coming for him as he expected, 
and in retiring to bed, he said to his companion — ' Good- 
by, my dear fellow — I shall never see you any more ; for 
when you wake in the morning, you will find your throat 
cut !' " 

a But," said Mrs. Howitt, "let what would happen, if it 
rained or snowed beyond all possibility of travelling, you 
would turn me out. You would permit Mr. Howitt to 
stay ; but poor I must dare the elements, and do as well as 
I could." 

"0 ma'am," they replied, " we should be very sorry; 
but the rules of our order would compel us to do so — not, 
however, quite so savagely as you represent ; for we would 
take care to get you good quarters in the neighbourhood." 

I was anxious to sound, if possible, spite of the prover- 
bial casuistry and caution of their order, their real senti- 
ments regarding the recovery of ecclesiastical power. When, 
therefore, conversation had assumed a confidential, and even 
a merry tone, I alluded to the general belief of their hope of 
the recovery of ecclesiastical ascendency in this country, and 
asked — 

"Is not this an object that, as sincere lovers of your own 
church, you must ardently desire ?" In a moment, and 
with an enthusiasm that could not be mistaken, one of them 
replied — " No, never ! To desire the political establish- 
ment of Catholicism, would be to desire its destruction ! 
I hope never to see that day — it would be a fatal day to 
us." 

" Yes," I rejoined ; "this, I know, is the common language 

29* 



342 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

of English Catholics ; but how is it that it does not agree 
with the practice of Catholics, when the opportunity is 
afforded thom ? On the continent, we see the Catholics as 
ready as ever to ally themselves with the state." 

" That," replied Mr. Daniells, " is the very reason that 
makes me dread a union with the state here. I know 
human nature — I know how prone it is to grasp at power 
and honour ; but I know, too, that the union with the state 
was the destruction of the Church of Rome in this country, 
in the sixteenth century ; and it is destroying the Church of 
England now, and will destroy it. Sir, we have read his- 
tory as well as the Protestants, and we know, as well as 
we know anything, that an establishment is the most fatal 
curse that can befall any church. We know that it infuses 
a Lethean lethargy ; it destroys the vitality of zeal ; it breaks 
up the living interest between the priest and his people. 
That is the notorious and necessary result of an establish- 
ment; that has been, and is, and must be, the perpetual 
tendency of every such experiment ; and therefore what- 
ever may be the desire of others, mine is, that Catholicism 
may never be established by law in these kingdoms. I do 
not deny that I desire to see Catholicism spread and prosper ; 
as a zealous lover of my Church, and deeming it, as I do, 
the best form of Christianity, it is what I must desire ; and 
here we have done all that we could, and shall continue to 
do all that we can, to extend its sphere and its influence. I 
do not deny that we love power ; but then, it is an intel- 
lectual and moral power — not the unnatural power derived 
from a political alliance, which in the end brings weakness 
to the state, while it confers a specious and external form 
of existence ; and like a vampire, saps the very life of the 
life within its victim. If I desire prosperity and power for 
my church, all history has shown me that they only can be 
derived from the voluntary zeal of the minister and the 
affections of the people," 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 343 

We could not but admit that this was, at least, sound 
reasoning — a wise and legitimate rendering of the language 
of a long and painful experience ; and we felt, in the frank 
earnestness with which it was delivered, that it was sincere. 
Whether the body of Catholics partake of the same philo- 
sophic views, and whether the return of prosperity would 
not bring back all the ancient thirst of spiritual dominion, 
are different questions. 

We rose to take our leave, and our polite and hospitable 
hosts also took their caps and walked down with us to 
Hurst's-Green. As we approached the place, I pointed out 
to them the new English church built on the hill opposite. 
They smiled, and said — 

" Yes, they may build churches, and preach bitter ser- 
mons against us, but it all will not avail ; it is not by these 
means that the hearts of the people are won, and their lives 
amended. We shall go on in our way." 

And what is that way ? That is an important question. 
The fact, indeed, that the fathers have proselyted the greater 
part of the population of the neighbourhood, one which has 
naturally excited no little curiosity and interest. Their 
regular congregation then consisted of 1600 people, exclu- 
sive of their own establishment, which was 250, making in 
all about 1S50 people. The popular alarm respecting the 
increase of Catholics in England, has therefore necessarily 
been particularly strong in this neighbourhood, so much so, 
that the members of the Established Church have built this 
new church in the nearest possible approach to the estate of 
the College, in order to counteract the influence of the 
fathers. A portion of the success of the Jesuits may proba- 
bly be attributed to their being landlords of a good deal of 
the district, as well as to the fact of the estate having been 
from time immemorial in the hands of a zealous Catholic 
family, whose influence could not fail to leave a strong im- 
pression. But this will not account for the whole ; and the 



344 VISIT TO STONYHURST. 

simple cause is to be found, in the policy of the Jesuit 
fathers themselves. It is evident that they have established 
their influence here by the very same means that their order 
established such amazing power over the people of Para- 
guay ; not by their doctrines nor their ceremonies, but by 
that of active and unwearied personal attention to their 
wants and comforts. This appears to be the only " witch- 
craft which they have used," and which will produce the 
same results in the hands of all who will use it. One act of 
personal kindness, one word of sympathy, will win more 
hearts than all the eloquence of Cicero or the wealth of the 
Indies. The religion of good works, of generous and active 
philanthropy, is the only religion which will suit the 
people. The bulk of the population are not nice reasoners : 
they are none of your acute metaphysicians, who can tell 
you the difference between the hundredth and the hundred- 
ahd-first shade of a sentiment; but they know in a moment 
when they are treated as men, and their hearts kindle and 
embrace their benefactors with a sympathy not easily de- 
stroyed. Their understandings may even revolt at the 
prominent errors of a church's doctrines ; but if they once 
feel that it has the pith of real Christian kindness in it, they 
are gained for ever. Errors become changed, in their minds, 
into matters of indifference, or are actually converted by 
the mental alchemy of grateful affection into venerable 
truths. This, from our observation and inquiry, appeared 
to be the process by which so great changes, had been 
effected at Stonyhurst. More cheerful, friendly people than 
the Jesuit fathers, it is impossible to find ; visiting the poor 
in their cottages with the utmost assiduity and familiar kind- 
ness. Differing most widely from the creed of these gentle- 
men, it is only justice to bear this testimony to their prac- 
tice. And so far from cause of alarm, we think that that 
very success points out to Protestants of all persuasions the 
most luminous means of its counteraction. If the faith of 



VISIT TO STONYHURST. 345 

these men be adulterated by grievous errors and tradi- 
tionary superstitions, as it unquestionably is — and yet, by 
their simple practical policy of interesting themselves in the 
welfare of the people around them, they have succeeded in 
restoring to popular favour, a religion which for three cen- 
turies has been stigmatized throughout England and Scot- 
land as a bloody and superstitious religion — a religion 
which, in fact, when it was the established religion of the 
land, crowned itself with odium for its rapacity, its sensu- 
ality, and for the folly, idleness, and everlasting bickerings 
of its monks ; and what is more, if they who have done 
this belong to an order of that religion which, beyond all 
others — by the depth of its policy, the ambition and the 
talent of its leaders, by the pliant and most persevering 
pursuance of its objects — rendered itself the terror and ab- 
horrence of the English nation — what shall not the pro- 
fessors of a purer faith achieve by the same means ? The 
doings of the Jesuits of Stonyhurst are, in fact, a study of 
curious interest to all those who are alarmed at the growth 
of Popery, or who would strengthen their own influence in 
the hearts of the people around them. 



VISIT TO THE ANCIENT CITY OF WINCHESTER. 



HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES. 

What an interesting old city is Winchester ! and how 
few people are aware of it ! The ancient capital of the 
kingdom — the capital of the British, and the Saxon, and 
the Norman kings — the favourite resort of our kings and 
queens, even till the revolution of 1688 ; the capital which, 
for ages, maintained a proud, and long a triumphant rivalry 
with London itself; the capital which once boasted upwards 
of ninety churches and chapels, whose meanest houses now 
stand upon the foundations of noble palaces and magnifi- 
cent monasteries ; and in whose ruins or in whose yet 
superb Minster, lie enshrined the bones of mighty kings, 
and fair and pious queens ; of lordly abbots, and prelates, 
who, in their day, swayed not merely the destinies of this 
one city, but of the kingdom. There she sits — a sad dis- 
crowned queen, and how few are acquainted with her in 
the solitude of her desertion ! Yet where is the place, 
saving London itself, which can compete with her in solemn 
and deep interest ? Where is the city except that in Great 
Britain, which can show so many objects of antique beauty, 
or call up so many national recollections ? Here lie the 
bones of Alfred — here he was probably born, for this was 
at that time the court and the residence of his parents. 
Here, at . all events, he spent his infancy, and the greater 
portion of his youth. Here he imbibed the wisdom and 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 347 

magnanimity of mind with which he afterwards laid the 
foundations of our monarchy, our laws, liberties, and litera- 
ture, and in a word, of our national greatness. Hence he 
went forth to fight those battles which freed his country 
from the savage Dane ; and having done more for his 
realm and race than ever monarch did before or since, here 
he lay down in the strength of his years, and consigned his 
tomb as a place of grateful veneration to a people, whose 
future greatness even his sagacious spirit could not be pro- 
phetic enough to foresee. 

Were it only for the memory and tomb of this great king, 
Winchester ought to be visited by every Englishman with 
the most profound veneration and affection ; but here also lie 
the ashes of nearly all Alfred's family and kin : his father 
Ethelwolph, who saw the virtues and talents, and prognos- 
ticated the greatness of his son : his noble-minded mother, 
who breathed into his infant heart the most sublime senti- 
ments ; his royal brothers, and his sons and daughters. 
Here also repose Canute, who gave that immortal reproof 
on the Southampton shore to his sycophantic courtiers, and 
his celebrated queen Emma, so famous at once for her 
beauty and her trials. Here is still seen the tomb of Rufns, 
who was brought hither in a charcoal-burner's cart from the 
New Forest, where the chance arrow of Tyrrel avenged, in 
his last hunt, the cruelties of himself and his father on that 
ground. But, in fact, the whole soil here seems to be com- 
posed of the dust of kings and queens, of prelates and no- 
bles, and every object, to have been witness to some of the 
most signal struggles and strange histories which mark the 
annals of the empire ; and in order to have a due idea of 
the wealth of human interest here accumulated, it is desira- 
ble that before we ramble through the streets and beneath 
the crumbling ramparts of this queen of British cities, we 
should take a rapid glance at the long line of the illustrious 
personages who have figured within it, many of whose acts 



348 VISIT TO WESTCHESTER. 

indeed have given an inextinguishable cast and colour to the 
destinies of the realm. Winchester has been fortunate in 
her historians ; and especially in her last and best, Dr. Mil- 
ner ; and following in their track, we may confidently walk 
over her most hallowed ground, and mount her hills, every 
one of them rife with historic memories, and point out the 
footsteps and the dim receding figures of crowned monarchs, 
embattled hosts, the duels of renowned champions, or the 
peaceful processions of mitred and cowled men, amid the 
sound of martial or sacred music, and the hushed awe of 
the myriad of lookers-on. 

Throwing aside the fables of Nennius, and Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, and the pedigree of King Brute, drawn from 
Eneas of Troy, our historians claim a high antiquity for 
Winchester, as the Caer Gwent of the Celtic and Belgic 
Britons, the Venta Belgarum of the Romans, and the Win- 
tanceaster of the Saxons. The history of Winchester is 
nearly coeval with the Christian era. Julius Csesar does 
not seem to have been here, in his invasion of Britain, but 
some of his troops must have passed through it ; a plate from 
one of his standards, bearing his name and profile, having 
been found deep buried in a sand-bed in this neighbour- 
hood ; and here, within the first half century of Christendom, 
figured the brave descendants of Cassibelaunus, those noble 
sons of Cunobelin or Cymbeline, Guiderius and Arviragus, 
whom Shakspeare has so beautifully presented to us in his 
Cymbeline ; — that Arviragus, the Cogidubnus also of his 
countrymen, and the noble Caractacus of the Roman histo- 
rians. Who is not acquainted with his dignified conduct at 
Rome ? with the joy of the Emperor Claudius, and the whole 
Roman court and people, when he was betrayed into their 
hands? with their generous treatment of him, and with his re- 
turn to this country to reign at Venta, with his new Roman 
queen Gewissa ? This lady, our ancient historians do not 
hesitate to style the daughter of Claudius himself. But both 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 349 

they and the Roman poet Martial, claim Claudia the daughter 
of Caractacus, as the wife of the noble senator Pudens, both of 
whom are mentioned by St. Paul in his second epistle to 
Timothy (c. iv. v. 21), as their mutual Christian friends at 
Rome. If we are to credit the Saxon Martyrology and 
Archbishop Usher, not only were the descendants of Clau- 
dia and Pudens amongst the most eminent Christians of 
Rome ; but Lucius, the great-grandson of Tiberius Claudius 
Cogidubnus, our Arviragus or Caractacus, was the first 
Christian king in this or any other country. Hence was he 
called by the old historians Lever Maur, or the Great Light, 
and hence did he take the star of Jacob for his badge, as 
may be seen in the engraving of one of his medals in Cam- 
den. We learn that he founded in Britain churches in each 
of its twenty-eight cities, and built here a noble cathedral. 
He was the last of the tributary kings ; the Roman emperors 
afterwards holding their government in their own hands till 
they finally withdrew from the island. 

But here it was that, while Caractacus himself reigned, 
the fate of the brave queen Boadicea was sealed. Stung 
to the quick with the insults she had received from the 
Romans, this noble queen of the Iceni, the Bonduca of some 
writers, and the Boo Tika of her own coins, had sworn to 
root out the Roman power from this country. Had she 
succeeded, Caractacus himself had probably fallen, nor had 
there ever been a king Lucius here. She came breathing 
utter extermination to everything Roman or of Roman 
alliance, at. the head of 230,000 barbarians, the most numer- 
ous army till then ever collected by any British prince. Al- 
ready had she visited and laid in ashes Camulodunum, 
London, and Verulam, killing every Roman and every Ro- 
man ally, to the amount of 70,000 souls. But in this neigh- 
bourhood she was met by the Roman general Paulinus, and 
her army routed with the slaughter of 80,000 of her fol- 
lowers. In her despair at this catastrophe, she destroyed 

30 



350 i, VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

herself, and instead of entering the city in triumph was 
brought in a breathless corpse for burial. 

Many were the stirring events which occurred here while 
the Roman emperors, or the tyrants who rose up in Britain, 
and assumed the purple in defiance of them, reigned ; but 
none were so bloody as the persecution of the Christians by 
Diocletian, in which the streets of Venta were deluged with 
innocent blood, and the splendid minster of Lucius razed 
to the ground ; and none so curious as that a monk of this 
city, Constans, should go forth a warrior, assume the purple 
and the imperial crown, and become, in that character, the 
conqueror of Spain. It was during the dynasty of the 
Saxon kings that Winchester was especially the seat of 
royalty, and the scene of singular events. Before the valiant 
Cerdic, the Saxon, the famous Uther Pendragon, the father 
of the yet more famous king Arthur, gave ground, and left 
Caer G went, or Venta, to become Wintanceaster, the capital 
of the West Saxons. Here then reigned Ceaulin, who beat, 
at Wimbledon in Surrey, Ethelbert, the first Christian king 
of Kent ; Kinegils, the renowned king, who, victorious over 
all his enemies, received the Christian faith from St. Birinus, 
in 625, and began to build anew the cathedral, which his 
son Kenewalk completed, in which the bones of Kinegils 
are yet carefully preserved. Here, after a succession of 
stout kings, reigned Egbert, who first united the Saxon 
Heptarchy, and made Wintanceaster the capital of Eng- 
land ; having in his youth lived in the capital of the Franks, 
and formed himself on the model of the great Charlemagne, 
of the example of whose virtues and valour he had great 
need, for in his day the Danes rushed abroad over his 
kingdom, and burnt towns and ravaged the country far 
and wide. 

In the cathedral of this city his son Ethel wolph, the father 
of Alfred, signed and delivered, before the high altar, in the 
presence of two subject kings and a great number of nobles, 
one of the most important, and, from its consequences, most 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 351 

celebrated documents, which ever issued from the hands of 
a king — the Charter of Tithes on all the lands in England ; 
which, says William of Malmsbury,for the greater solemnity, 
he then placed on the altar. Here, as we have before said, 
lived the gallant, the philosophic, and the pious Alfred, 
whom Milner justly pronounces " the miracle of history ; a 
prince who, having been the subject of innumerable pens, 
has never had a defect imputed to him as a sovereign, or a 
fault as a man !" — whom Sir Henry Spelman calls " the 
wonder and astonishment of all ages !" — and whom Hume, 
the historian, thus speaks of: " The merit of this prince, both 
in private and public life, may with advantage be set in 
opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which the 
annals of any age or any nation can present to us. He 
seems, indeed, to be the model of that perfect character, 
which, under the denomination of a sage or wise man, 
philosophers have been fond of delineating, rather as a fic- 
tion of their imagination, than in hopes of ever seeing it 
really existing ; so happily were all his virtues tempered 
together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully 
did each prevent the other from exceeding its proper bound- 
aries ! He knew how to reconcile the most enterprising 
spirit with the coolest moderation ; the most obstinate per- 
severance with the easiest flexibility ; the most severe 
justice with the gentlest lenity ; the greatest vigour in com- 
manding with the most perfect affability of deportment ; the 
highest capacity and inclination for science with the most 
shining talents for action. His civil and military virtues 
are almost equally the objects of our admiration, excepting 
only, that the former being more rare among princes, as 
well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. 
Nature also, as if desirous that so bright a production of 
her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on 
him every bodily accomplishment, vigour of limbs, dignity 
of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and open 
countenance." 



352 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

And what did Alfred, to win these extraordinary praises ? 
In the short period of twenty-nine years and a half, the 
period of his reign, he chased numerous armies of Danes 
from his country, though beset sometimes with several of 
them appearing in different quarters at once. Numbers of 
them he civilized and Christianized, and planted in the parts 
which they themselves had depopulated. He raised a na- 
tional militia, and so trained it as to be ready to issue forth 
at the shortest notice, and march to any point at which the 
enemy might appear. He was the first to build and main- 
tain a fleet, and thus avail himself of the peculiar strength 
of our insular position. He established such a police, that 
when he hung, as a trial, golden bracelets on trees by the 
highways, not a man dared to take them down ; and the 
husbandman — the mechanic — returning in security to 
their daily tasks, England speedily assumed such an air of 
security and prosperity as it never knew before. Though 
Egbert, his grandfather, had united the Heptarchy under 
one nominal crown, it was he who first really cemented 
England into one kingdom ; the Welsh even acknowledging 
his authority, and the whole country, from the borders of 
Scotland to the South, submitting to his rule. Whatever 
had been fabled of Arthur, seemed realized in Alfred. He 
was not only the founder of the monarchy in its geographi- 
cal extent, but in its constitution and laws. Having fought 
fifty-six battles himself, by sea and land, he sate down to the 
equally arduous task of framing the institutions of peace 
and knowledge. He wrote a body of laws, which, though 
now lost, are yet believed to be the origin of what we term 
our Common Law. He divided the whole country into 
tithings, hundreds, and shires, with proper magistrates in 
each, and with appeal from the court of the tithing to that 
of the hundred, thence to the shire ; and, finally, if necessary 
to himself. Every man in each tithing was answerable for 
the conduct of another, and whoever did not register him- 
self in his tithing, was punishable as an outlaw. None 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 353 

could move from his place of abode without a certificate 
from his tithing-man, or borsholder. Besides the monthly 
meetings of each hundred for the due administration of jus- 
tice, there was an annual one, which has given to many 
hundreds the name of wapentake, for to it every man came 
armed, and then was made a stern inquiry into the conduct 
of police and of magistrates, as well as of the people, and 
all abuses were impartially redressed. Assizes were to 
be held twice a year in each shire, and twice a year he 
regularly assembled the States in the capital. No man, 
was tried, for any offence, without twelve freeholders 
being sworn to make due examination of his cause. Thus 
were laid down our present plan of administrative justice, 
trial by jury, and our parliament. If Alfred did not invent 
these institutions — for they are of a kind which prevailed 
amongst most of the ancient Saxon and Teutonic nations — 
he, however, systematized and reduced them to an exact 
practice, using great exertion to secure magistrates, sheriffs, 
and earls of strict integrity, of the greatest intelligence ; and 
removing rigidly all that appeared corrupt or incompetent. 
Never was so admirable a plan of civil jurisdiction framed in 
so rude an age ; and to remedy the very rudeness of the age, 
he invited into his kingdom the most learned and pious men 
from all parts. He founded and endowed the University 
of Oxford. He may, indeed, be said to have established a 
national system of education, for he enacted that every man 
who possessed two hydes of land should send his children 
to school to be educated. He himself undertook transla- 
tions from the Greek and Latin languages ; amongst them 
iE sop's Fables, Boethius on the Consolations of Philosophy, 
and the histories of Orosius and Bede. He wrote stories, 
fables and poems. He encouraged merchandise and manu- 
factures of all kinds ; and while all this time racked by the 
pangs of an incurable malady, he rebuilt his ruined cities, 
and especially the cities of Winchester and London, in 
greater magnificence than they had known before. He was 

30* 



354 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

celebrated for having introduced a superior style of archi- 
tecture into the kingdom, and built four noble monasteries 
as models of tasteful magnificence, one of them being 
the Netoart ptimstre, where his bones were laid. To crown 
all, not contented with what he had done while living, he 
left behind him, in his will, as an immortal legacy to his 
country, the sentiment — how glorious from the heart of a 
great and victorious king ! — that " it is just that the 
English should for ever remain as free as their 
own thoughts !" Well might Sir Henry Spelman style 
him "the wonder and astonisment of all ages !" and add, 
" if we reflect on his piety and religion, it would seem that 
he had always lived in a cloister : if on his warlike exploits, 
that he had never been out of camps : if on his learning 
and writings, that he had spent his whole life in a college : 
if on his wholesome laws and wise administration, that 
these had been his whole study and employment." While 
contemplating with speechless admiration this sublime and 
truly godlike character, we cannot help exclaiming, Why 
has the world been presented with such hosts of kings, and 
but — one Alfred ? How mysterious is that Providence 
which does not permit to suffering mankind the blessing of 
one such perfect monarch, even in a thousand years ! 

Thou hast done nobly, thou hast bravely fought ! 
Oh ! not for kingly state or lawless sway ; 
On Freedom's shrine thou didst thy sceptre lay ! 
And henceforth is thine empire in the thought 
And feelings of the Free. Power may devise 
A throne, whose incense is the millions' sighs ; 
But thou hast won for thee a nobler state — 
A more enduring throne : for worthless things 
Are crowns and sceptres, and the sway of kings, 
Compared with the high feelings, which await 
The givers of the gift of Liberty { 
Hence it is that for thee the homage springs 
Of all the great and wise ; and hence for thee 
Breathes through all climes a noble memory. 

Richard Howitt. 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 355 

We might have supposed that such would have been the 
love and veneration of Englishmen for such a man, that 
his tomb would have been held the most sacred spot on all 
the broad bosom of England, and that the feet of pilgrims 
would have not merely worn down the marble steps of his 
shrine, but have made dusty the very highways leading 
towards it, from the most distant extremities of the empire ; 
— but what is the fact ? A beautiful and stately abbey 
was built to receive his remains, in Hyde Meadow, near 
this city, and thither they were conveyed from his august 
monastery, the Nctoacn Jttimstve, with a solemn procession, 
and holy chantings ; but, at the dissolution of the abbeys, 
this was pulled down, to sell the materials ; the tombs of 
Alfred, of his queen Alswitha, of Edward the Elder, his 
son, and many of their descendants and other illustrious 
persons, were given up to the mercy of the destroyers. 
What that age left undone the last completed, by building 
a Bridewell on the very spot where this great king and 
perpetual benefactor of his country once reposed amid his 
kindred and his friends ! Thus, while gorgeous tombs rise 
above the bones of many a worthless monarch, or ignoble 
grandee, the dust of Alfred, the noblest man that ever wore 
a crown, has been violated by the pick and spade of ruth- 
less workmen, and his monument is — a gaol ! 

But our alternate admiration of the monarch, and indig- 
nation at the fate of his remains, have stopped us on our 
way. The descendants of Alfred continued to sway the 
Saxon sceptre for a hundred and sixty-five years, with the 
interruption of the brief dynasty of Canute and his sons 
Harold and Hardicanute ; but no other Alfred arose amongst 
them. Valiant and great princes were some of them for 
the times : as Athelstan the Victorious ; and Edgar the Mag- 
nificent, who made seven kings row him in his barge on the 
river Dee : but others, such as Ethelred the Unready, who 
was soon compelled to fly before the Danes ; and Edmund 
Ironside, that stout-hearted but unlucky king, who was 



356 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

obliged to divide his kingdom with them, showed only by 
the retrogression of the realm under their rule, how truly 
great had been their immortal ancestor, Alfred. 

Yet during the Saxon period there is a picturesqueness of 
history that nowhere else occurs. There is a rude simpli- 
city of life, and a mixture of great crimes and romantic in- 
cidents, that could only arise in such a life. The monarchs 
hunting with few attendants, or feasting in their halls in a 
most jovial and unguarded manner, gave occasion to events 
that could not in any after age have happened to the most 
ordinary noble. Into the hall of young Edmund, the suc- 
cessor of Athelstan, walked the great outlaw Leolf, on a 
day of high feasting, and seated himself at table. He sate 
and caroused, spite of the king's indignant command to 
withdraw himself, and the king instead of ordering his at- 
tendants to expel him, jumped up, seized him by the throat, 
and while dragging the robber out, was stabbed by him to 
the heart. Edwy, while in company with his wife, or as 
Milner will have it, his mistress, is dragged out by St. Dun- 
stan, and the Archbishop of Canterbury; the queen, or 
lady claiming to be queen, is branded in the face, and ba- 
nished — the people rise, at the instigation of the priests, in 
rebellion against the king, who is excommunicated and chased 
away, so that he comes to his death a mere boy, not yet 
eighteen years of age ; and the lady being again found in 
England, is hamstrung by the order of the archbishop, and 
dies in agony. Edgar his successor, a great admirer of 
female beauty, is cheated out of the lovely Elfrida by his 
favourite Athelwald, who being sent to see her on the king's 
account, falls in love with her, and coming back persuades 
the king that she is nothing particular ; marries her himself; 
and falls the victim of the combined vengeance of the king 
and the lady on the discovery of the truth. Edward, the 
son and successor of Edgar, a gay and open-hearted youth 
of nineteen, while hunting, leaves his train, rides off into 
the forest, to see his step-mother, this fair but imperious 



VISIT TO WESTCHESTER. 357 

Elfrida, and while drinking a cup of wine, which she pre- 
sents him as he sits on horseback at her castle-gate, is 
stabbed by her command. This beautiful, but haughty and 
ambitious woman, having thus caused the murder of her 
first husband Athelwald by Edgar, in order to win a crown, 
and thus murdered Edgar's son by a former wife to make 
room for her own ; now struck with incurable remorse, quits 
her regal state, her noble castle of Corfe, builds an abbey 
at Wherwell in the forest of Harewood near where her 
first husband fell, and there, amid the most rigorous pe- 
nances, fastings, prayers, wearing next her skin cloth of hair, 
passes her whole life ; there dies and is buried. It was 
Ethelred the Unready, the successor of Edgar, who con- 
ceived and executed the blooody massacre of all the Danes 
in the kingdom, whom he had not been able by arms to 
subdue. It was he who issued secret letters, that on the 
festival of St. Brice, which fell on a Sunday, the people 
should suddenly everywhere rise and put every Dane to 
death. It was in this city, in the year 1002, that this hor- 
rid butchery began ; and what is more remarkable, it was 
the concluding scene of the king's marriage festivities with 
Emma the fair maid of Normandy. 

From this massacre sprung one of the most remarkable 
of our old English popular customs, that of the Hocktide mer- 
riments ; which have been continued through every suc- 
ceeding age, and are even yet practised, particularly in the 
northern parts of the kingdom, where so many of the Danes 
were located. Those who may have witnessed what is 
called Lifting, at Easter ; that is, men being lifted in a chair 
by the women, till they give them a tribute to be free, may 
have never known that that merry custom commenced in 
the city of Winchester, nearly nine hundred years ago, in 
the bloody massacre of the Danes, when the women took an 
active part in the affairs : hamstringing such of their victims 
as they spared, that they might no longer be able to fight ; 
whence in the annual rejoicings which they instituted to 



358 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

commemorate this tragedy, they substituted the symbolical 
practice of tying the men down in a chair, for disabling 
them, and demanding for their release a fee. But for this 
bloody deed, this kingdom, and especially this city, its capi- 
tal — speedily received sweeping vengeance. The Danes 
under Sweyn, came hot with fury, overrun everything, and, 
compelling the monarch to fly for his life, placed a fierce 
Dane in every house as its keeper, and instead of Hocktide 
sports, made the cowering Saxon bow his bare head to every 
Lord Dane that he met ; and if he encountered him on a 
bridge or in a narrow way, so to stand till his lordship had 
passed, or to receive prompt chastisement at his hand. In 
this cathedral, if we are to believe the ancient annalists and 
the popular songs of succeeding ages, the widow of the 
victorious Canute, the celebrated Emma, who had been 
the wife of two kings, and was now the mother of a 
third, passed the fiery ordeal, and walked unhurt over 
nine red-hot ploughshares. She came thither the pre- 
ceding day from the abbey of Wherwell, whither she had 
retired, and spent the night before the altar in prayer. 
When the morning broke, there came the king, the bishops, 
and all the multitude of people, to witness this fearful 
spectacle ; and when they saw her walk, supported by two 
bishops, over the burning metal not merely unhurt, but un- 
conscious of it, thus being cleared by divine power itself 
from the breath of calumny, the thousand of spectators 
made the vaults of the ancient mynstre, and the vaults of 
heaven itself to ring with their acclamations. 

Such were the scenes which passed in the royal city of 
Wintanceaster during its period of Saxon glory — but the 
Normans came, and London began to rival and eclipse it 
as a regal seat. From the day, indeed, in which Alfred had 
rebuilt London in so superior a style, and had ordered the 
States to assemble there twice a year, its natural advantages 
of situation as the capital of a great realm, began to be felt, 
and it consequently increased rapidly in power and popula- 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 359 

tion. A great river is the true seat for a great capital, and 
the Thames was not only a noble stream, but was so located 
in reference to the continent, that its signal superiority could 
be no longer overlooked. While the kingdom was not suf- 
ficiently knit together to repel readily the ravages of foreign 
foes, a capital such as Winchester, a little removed from 
the coast, and especially from the northern coasts of the con- 
tinent, which poured out so many fierce barbarians, was a 
more desirable spot ; but the Normans were a powerful 
race, and their relative location and communication with 
their own country, which must be kept up by ships, which 
again must necessarily require a noble harbour — made 
London the seat of power, but still left Winchester the seat 
of residence and pleasure. Here the Conqueror found him- 
self in the very paradise of his own desire. His passion for 
dominion was not more fervent than his passion for hunting. 
" He loved," says the Saxon chronicler, who is believed to 
have been his cotemporary, "great deer as if he had been their 
father." Here then was a noble old city, well fortified, the 
seat of the kings of three preceding dynasties. So here he 
built him a castle to hold the natives in check, and a palace, 
thrusting it into the north end, even of the cathedral en- 
closure, where some of its massy foundations are yet to be 
seen ; and here soon began to toll his great even-bell of 
Couvrefou, which was soon echoed from every parish steeple 
throughout the kingdom, and which yet are heard ringing 
by us at eight o'clock in an evening — the curfew-bell of 
these peaceful days. The city stood in a lovely and fertile 
valley, watered by one of the most wonderfully translucent 
streams on earth ; and around it lay a delightful country — 
to him especially delightful, for its pleasant woods of 
Hempage, its forests of Bere and Woolmer, Chute and 
Pamber, all within scope of an accessible variety, but espe- 
cially his great and favourite region of Ythene, or New 
Forest. Here he was, therefore, often to be found ; as was 
his son Rufus, who, as we have observed, was buried here. 



360 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

Here the royal treasures were kept; here, and "for ages 
after, were the royal mints; and under these kings and 
their successors, till the time of Edward III., who con- 
tinued to keep their court and wear their crowns here 
at Easter annually, Winchester nourished greatly. As 
the stream of years rolled on, Winchester witnessed many 
a singular scene, at which we can only give a glance. 
It saw the line of Alfred mingled with that of the Norman 
dynasty, by the union of Maud, or Molde the Good, the 
great granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, and Henry the 
First. Here she was living in a monastery — here she was 
married — and, according to Rudborne, after a life of active 
piety, distributing alms, building hospitals and bridges, and 
serving the infirm and diseased in person — here she was 
buried. Here her daughter, the Empress Matilda, waged 
the hottest part of her long warfare with Stephen, in which 
themost populous partof the city was destroyed by Stephen's 
party, with twenty churches, the royal palace, and the noble 
monasteries of St. Mary and St. Grimbald ; and the Empress 
herself was only able to escape out of the besieged castle by 
a pretended death, and a truce obtained for the purpose 
of her funeral, during which she was carried out of 
the city through the midst of her besiegers on a horse- 
litter, wrapt as a corpse in a sheet of lead. Here Coeur-de- 
Lion, after his crusade and captivity in Germany, thinking 
himself half unkinged by his absence and thraldom, caused 
himself to be again crowned with great pomp and cere- 
mony ; and here the whole country saw with indignation 
the most contemptible act of the contemptible John. 

After having here planned sundry schemes of exaction and 
oppression — after attempting to seize one -thirteenth of all 
the moveable property of the realm, and bearding the Pope 
about the appointment of an archbishop — as mean as 
obstinate, he then ran into the other extreme, on being 
menaced with his kingdom being given to the king of 
France. At Dover he laid his crown and treasures at the 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 361 

feet of the Pope's agent, Pandulph, doing homage for them, 
and agreeing to ratify what Matthew of Westminster justly 
terms a treaty lamentable, and detestable, at this city. 
Here, therefore, on the approach of the rejected Archbishop 
Langton, and several brother prelates, he went out to meet 
them on the downs of Magdalen-hill, where " at the sight 
of them he fell upon his knees, and shed many tears. This 
had the effect of melting the whole company, who mingled 
their tears with his. The prelates, raising him from the 
ground, now marched in mournful procession, repeating the 
50th Psalm, to the western door of the cathedral, where a 
great number of distinguished persons joined them in 
weeping and praying." They did not allow him, however, 
to enter the church, but as an excommunicated person kept 
him standing without a good while, but finally proceeded to 
the chapter-house, and absolved him in due form. 

Most of the succeeding kings and queens were to be found 
at one time or other at Winchester, holding festivals, or 
parliaments, or passing to and fro in their intestine wars. 
Henry III. was born here, and always bore the name of 
Henry of Winchester : Henry IV. here married Joan of 
Brittany ; Henry VI. came often hither, his first visit being 
to study the discipline of Wykeham's college, as a model for 
his new one at Eton to supply students to King's College, 
at Cambridge, as Wykeham's does to his foundation of New 
College, Oxford : and happy had it been for this unfortunate 
monarch, had he been a simple monk in one of the monas- 
teries of a city which he so much loved, enjoying peace, 
learning, and piety, having bitterly to learn — 

That all the rest is held at such a rate 

As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep 

Than in possession any jot of pleasure. 

Henry VIII. made a visit with the Emperor Charles V., and 
stayed a week examining its various antiquities and religious 
institutions ; but he afterwards visited them in a more 

31 



362 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

sweeping manner, by the suppression of its monasteries, 
chantries, etc., so that, says Milner, "These being dissolved, 
and the edifices themselves soon after pulled down, or 
falling to decay, it must have worn the appearance of a 
city sacked by a hostile army." Through his reign and 
that of Edward VI. the destruction of the religious houses, 
and the stripping of the churches, went on to a degree 
which must have rendered Winchester an object of ghastly 
change and desolation. " Then," says Milner, " were the 
precious and curious monuments of piety and antiquity, the 
presents of Egbert and Ethelwolph, Canute and Emma, 
unrelentingly rifled and cast into the melting-pot, for the 
mere value of the metal which composed them. Then were 
the golden tabernacles and images of the Apostles snatched 
from the cathedral and other altars," and not a few of the 
less valuable sort of these sacred implements were to be seen 
when he wrote (1798), and probably are now, in many 
private houses of this city and neighbourhood. 

The later history of this fine old city is chiefly that of 
melancholy and havoc. A royal marriage should be a gay 
thing ; but the marriage of Bloody Mary here to Philip of 
Spain awakes no great delight in an English heart. Here, 
through her reign and that of Elizabeth, the chief events 
were persecutions for religion. James I. made Winchester 
the scene of the disgraceful trials of Sir Walter Raleigh, 
Lords Cobhamand Grey, and their assumed accomplices — 
trials in which that most vain and pedantic of tyrants 
attempted, on the ground of pretended conspiracies, to 
wreak his personal spite on some of the best spirits of 
England. Three of these royal victims, the Hon. George 
Brooke, brother of Lord Cobham, and the priests Watson 
and Clarke, were executed here on the castle-hill ; the rest 
were reprieved after a barbarous farce of execution ; being 
brought out, one by one, and made to face the very axe, 
and even to prepare to feel its edge, and then remanded ; 
Sir Walter Raleigh being sent to the Tower, and cooped up 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 363 

for further mockery and final destruction. Such was the 
treatment of the man whose genius was an honour to the 
nation, and whose spirit and counsels had done more to 
break the Spanish power, then the deadly foe of England, 
than almost any person of the time, by this wretched doater 
on the Buckinghams and Carrs. The next reign saw his 
son Charles suffering for the base maxims of government 
which this great pretender to " kingcraft," as he termed it, 
had instilled into him, and brought through this very city a 
melancholy image of fallen greatness — a prisoner and a 
doomed man. Cromwell soon appeared here, and left those 
traces of his presence which, as in so many other places, 
remain to the present hour. He took the castle and blew it 
up with gunpowder. He demolished Wolvesley Castle, the 
bishop's palace ; battered to pieces the fortifications of the 
city, knocking down what was called the Norman Tower 
at the West-gate ; with several churches and other public 
buildings; and then leaving his troopers to stable their horses 
in the cathedral, they exercised their puritan ardour in de- 
molishing monuments, smashing painted windows, and 
perpetrating martyrdom on saints of stone. 

Charles II. took as great a fancy to Winchester as the 
Norman kings themselves, setting Sir Christopher Wren to 
build a palace for him on the site of the old castle, which, 
so far as finished, stands there now ; adding two new rooms 
to the deanery, in which he lived, for the accommodation of 
Nell Gwynn ; while the Duchess of Portsmouth built a 
house for herself in St. Peter Street. But the most singular 
fact of history connected with Winchester and its neighbour- 
hood, in modern times, and the last which we shall men- 
tion, is that of Richard Cromwell, Oliver's son, who re- 
signed the Protectorate, and has been universally reproached 
for it by the historians, as being a proof of his weakness 
and pusillanimity. It is much more probable that it was a 
proof of his good sense. Richard, no doubt, saw the signs 
of the times j that a strong party was mustering for the re- 



364 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

turn of the Stuarts. He had evidently a keen relish for the 
enjoyment of life, and had no desire to live as his father 
had done, with armour under his doublet, and sheet iron on 
his chamber door, and a brace of pistols always under his 
pillow. He therefore resolved to retire to enjoyment with 
the plenty which he had ; and a jolly life, it seems, he led 
of it, at the old manor of Mardon, at Hursley, near this 
city, which he received in marriage with Dorothy Major, 
daughter of an alderman of Southampton. In his father's 
lifetime, it is said, he used in his convivial hours to drink 
the health of his father's landlord, Charles II. Charles II., 
the landlord, it appears, on his return never molested him ; 
and he spent a merry life in hospitable old English state to 
the term of eighty years. Here he had a chest filled with 
addresses of congratulation and protestations of the most 
profound fidelity, which before his resignation he had re- 
ceived from all the corporations and almost all public cha- 
racters ; and on this he would often seat himself in the 
midst of his jovial friends, and boast that he was sitting on 
the lives and fortunes of most of the men in England. 



GENERAL ASPECT OF THE CITY. 

Such are some of the swarming historic recollections 
which come crowding on the mind as you enter the ancient 
city of Winchester, and it may be supposed, therefore, 
with what an interest a well-informed Englishman first 
wanders through it. As you approach it from any quarter, 
the huge fabric of its cathedral strikes the eye with a solemn 
and venerable air of antiquity. William of Wykeham's 
beautiful college, the Norman hospital of St. Cross down 
the valley, and the peeping towers of various old churches, 
strengthen the impression. Wherever you turn, when once 
within its streets, you encounter objects of the past ages — 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 365 

the massy old gateway ; the taper cross, light as a vision of 
fairyland ; the tall peaked roof of ancient hospital or hall, 
and crumbling ramparts and ivy-hung ruins. Everything 
is ancient. The houses are old and unpretending : you see 
none of those gay resuscitations and extensions of streets 
which mark the modern growth of many towns. There is 
a quietness and an absence of bustle in the streets them- 
selves. You think of such towns as Liverpool and Man- 
chester, where the spirit of modern activity has filled their 
huge boundaries with the din and the swarms of a restless, 
keen, and money-getting population ; of Newcastle, which 
has sprung up from its ancient dinginess to a splendour of 
buildings rivaling the capital ; or of Leamington, where 
the resort of fashion and affluent invalidism have made a 
splendid and glittering town out of a hamlet of yesterday ; 
and you feel that the great current of national existence has 
turned aside, and left this capital of the olden time to muse 
over her past greatness. As you pass on, your eye is ever and 
anon caught by the old projecting gable, the low-pointed 
arch leading into houses which were once conventional 
buildings or the palaces of nobles, but are now the dim 
abodes of the humblest citizens. Tali massy walls of gar- 
dens and other spacious inclosures testify to their own anti- 
quity ; niches with antique figures of saint and virgin, or 
holy matron ; memorial stones embedded in the sides of 
more recent buildings, arrest your eye at every brief inter- 
val of progress. The names of St. Swithun and St. Peter 
are inscribed on streets ; and if you lift your eye to the 
neighbouring hills, they are those of St. Magdalen or St. 
Catherine. Narrow passages lead you into the ancient bu- 
rial-ground, or past the dusky receding doorways of old 
chapels. You find those long secluded pathways between 
old high walls, leading to retired footpaths in the outskirts, 
and across the crofts and meadows near, that are only to be 
found in our old unchanged country towns, and to which 

31* 



366 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

we become so much attached when we have lived in such 
a town for some time, and made them our daily outlets to the 
country ; and, ever and anon, a solemn stroke of the great 
clock-bell of the minster, or a chime from a church tower, by 
the solemnity or the quaintness of its sound, strikes you with 
a sense of long-passed ages. 

It is but a few months ago that I once more traversed 
this interesting city, with my brother Richard, who then 
saw it for the first time. Bound on a voyage to the oppo- 
site regions of the globe, and enabled by the rough blessing 
of a storm to set foot once more on English soil, it would be 
difficult for a less poetical person to imagine the delight 
with which he went over every spot of this historical ground. 
Two days of the most splendid autumnal weather we spent 
in and around it, pacing its gothic aisles and cloisters, pon- 
dering over its monuments, climbing its hills, and following 
the windings of its most transparent stream, and every- 
where re-peopling its haunts with the varied multitude of 
its past inhabitants. We sat down on St. Giles' hill, while 
the whole chorus of church-bells filled the air with their 
solemn, yet rejoicing, murmur of sound ; for it was Sunday. 
A more beautiful and interesting scene cannot readily be 
presented to the eye than the one before us. The city lay 
at our feet, in a fine open valley, and occupying a good 
portion of it. All round it rose bare green downs, contrast- 
ing in their airiness with its broad mass of houses, of a sim- 
ple old English aspect, — red brick houses with red tiled 
roofs, sobered to the eye with age, and mingled with fine 
masses of trees, especially around the minster; William of 
Wykeham's college, and Eastgate-house and grounds to the 
right, just below us. The main street, running up straight 
before you, direct east and west, and, at its farther end, the 
ancient, massy Westgate, spanning it. Immediately to the 
left of this stands, on its bold elevation, the chapel of St. 
Stephen, the chapel of the old castle, but now used as the 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 367 

county court ; a building of simple outside, but with a fine 
interior, in which is still suspended on the wall the fabled 
Round-table of King Arthur, who was said by the British 
minstrels to hold his court here. But Dr. Milner has shown, 
too clearly for the boasts of old romance, that such could 
not be the fact, the Saxons getting possession of Winchester 
in Uther's time. On this hill, however, were executed the 
three gentlemen condemned by the judges of James, as par- 
ticipators in Raleigh's conspiracy. Close on the left again, 
stands the palace of Charles II. ; a heavy mass of Grecian 
architecture, which bears very ill the contrast with the beau- 
tiful gothic erections below. This stands on the site of the 
picturesque old castle of the Conqueror, where many a bold 
and bloody deed was done, and many a fierce beleaguering 
sustained. There, when Queen Isabella, with her para- 
mour Mortimer, had triumphed over her husband, Edward 
II., the head of the old Earl of Winchester, the brave cham- 
pion of the unfortunate king, and who had lived ninety years 
of wisdom and virtue, was seen bleaching on the top of the 
castle-gate at the command of the ferocious queen. But a 
still stranger sight was it, to see Edmund of Woodstock, the 
Earl of Kent/the king's own uncle, when condemned for 
his adherence to his kinsman and sovereign, standing on 
the scaffold before the castle-gate from morning till night, 
for want of an executioner ; such being the detestation of that 
lascivious woman and her base and murderous paramour, 
and such the love and veneration for that worthy nobleman, 
that not a man, of any degree whatever, either of the city 
or neighbourhood, could be induced by rewards or menaces 
to perform the office of headsman, till a mean wretch from 
the Marshalsea prison, to save his own life, at length con- 
sented to take that of the Earl of Kent. To the north of 
the town might be seen the locality of Hyde Meadow, 
where, the old minstrels maintain, that Guy of Warwick 
fought and slew the Danish giant, Colbrand. The ancient 
ballad of Sir Guy makes him say — 



368 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

And afterwards I offered up 

The use of weapons solemnly, 
At Winchester, whereat I fought 

In sight of many far and nye. 

But far more is Hyde Meadow memorable as the burial- 
place of the immortal Alfred, the great model of kings and 
of men. 

In the centre of the town rises the venerable cathedral, 
as its grand object; at a short distance south, Wykeham's 
college, looking like another church, with its handsome 
pinnacled tower and noble east window ; and down the 
valley, still more southward, the hospital of St. Cross, a 
miniature likeness of the cathedral, nearly buried in its sur- 
rounding trees. The meadows between the town and St. 
Cross show themselves very pleasantly, with their winding 
streams, their trees, and scattered pottages. Just below you 
to the left, between you and the cathedral, lie the extensive 
ruins of Wolvesley Castle ; built by Henry de Blois, the 
brother of King Stephen, and destroyed by Cromwell. De 
Blois is said to have built Wolvesley on the site of a Saxon 
palace, so named from the tribute of wolves' heads, levied 
by king Edgar, being paid there. Be that as it may, it 
became from De Blois' time the bishop's palace, and a 
noble one it must have been. Its massy and wide-spread 
walls overrun with a vast growth of ivy ; its still entire 
chapel ; its green inclosure, encircled by the old city walls, 
gray and broken, and yet carefully covered with fruit trees, 
— have a most picturesque aspect. The town comes up 
to the very foot of the hill, nay, its cottages and gardens 
climb the very acclivity, and remind one of Goethe's descrip- 
tion of his rambling round the old walls of Frankfort when 
a boy, and looking down into such gardens, and on men 
and women issuing like burrowing animals from their dens, 
which are unseen and unknown to the dwellers below. To 
our left, rose the swelling hill of St. Catherine, crowned with 
its copse of beech and fir, and belted with the green mound 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 365 

of its ancient camp, Roman or British ; and behind us, again, 
rose the downs of St. Magdalen, where formerly stood a 
noble hospital of that name, and where King John met and 
humbled himself at the feet of Langton. This very hill of 
St. Giles, on which we were, is one of the most distinguished 
in the neighbourhood of the city. Here, for ages, was held 
one of the greatest annual fairs in the kingdom. It was 
first granted by the Conqueror to his cousin, the Bishop 
Walkelin, and his successors, for a single day, and extended 
by future monarchs to sixteen days. A gay and most 
curious scene it must have been. Here came merchants 
from all parts of the kingdom and from the continent too, 
— Jews, spicers, players, jugglers, minstrels, dealers in 
cutlery, arms, horses and cattle, mendicant friars, the tin 
and copper merchants from Cornwall, and all the concourse 
of picturesque characters which sped to a great occasion of 
business and merriment in those ages. That the clergy did 
not keep too strict a hand on its mirth and frolic may well 
be believed, for the bishop, the priory of St. Swithun,Hyde 
Abbey, the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, and other cor- 
porations, received the tolls upon every article brought to 
the fair. For this purpose they had collectors stationed at 
Southampton, Redbridge, and on all the great roads leading 
to the city. During the continuance of the fair, all the shops 
were shut up in the city, and the mayor gave up the keys 
of the four city gates, and with them his authority, to a 
temporary magistrate of the bishop's appointment. A sort 
of city was erected on the hill itself. Its booths and tents 
were arranged in whole streets, each appropriated to the 
sale of its own peculiar commodity, and thence named, — 
as the drapery, the spicery, the stannery, etc. The fame of 
this fair was in every part of the kingdom ; and hence Piers 
Plowman is introduced, saying, 

To Wy* and to Winchester I went to the Fair. 

* Weyhill. 



370 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

Its reputation continued till the reign of Henry VI., when 
that of St. Magdalen's hill began to eclipse it. 

On this hill too, from the earliest times of Christianity, 
stood the chapel of St. Giles, which was burnt down in 1231, 
but rebuilt and remaining till the sweeping reign of Henry 
VIII. Nothing now remains of it but the churchyard ; 
which, however, is more than remains of the chapel of St. 
Catherine, which formerly crowned her noble hill, but fell in 
the same reign, and has- left only a bed of nettles to mark 
its site. 

On this hill was executed, and buried in its cross road, the 
great English Earl Waltheof, by the Conqueror for an at- 
tempt to throw off his yoke : a circumstance, from the attach- 
ment of the people to this powerful nobleman, and from their 
witnessing his beheading, as they stood at their own doors 
and windows, which long made this spot a place of great 
interest to the descendants of the Saxons in this neighbour- 
hood. 

Having now, from this elevation, taken a general survey 
of the city, we will descend and visit some of its most strik- 
ing objects ; and as it is impossible, in a mere passing visit, 
to notice a tithe of its attractive antiquities, we shall confine 
ourselves to its three grand ones — the Cathedral, the Col- 
lege of Wykeham, and the Cross. 



THE CATHEDRAL. 

On entering the Cathedral inclosure on its north side from 
High-street, you are at once struck with the venerable ma- 
jesty and antique beauty of the fine old pile before you ; and 
with the sacred quietude of the inclosure itself. In the heart 
of this tranquil city it has yet a deeper tranquillity of its 
own. Its numerous tombs and headstones, scattered over 
its greensward, and its lofty avenues of lime-trees, seem to 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 37 1 

give you a peaceful welcome to the Christian fane and rest- 
ing-place of so many generations. If you enter at the cen- 
tral passage, you tread at once on the eastern foundations of 
the Conqueror's palace, and pass close to the spot on which 
formerly rose the western towers of Alfred's Netoan pi»nstre t 
and where lay his remains, after having been removed from 
the old mynstre, till Hyde Abbey was built. It is impossi- 
ble to walk over this ground, now so peaceful, without call- 
ing to mind to what scenes of havoc and blood, of triumph 
and ecclesiastical pomp, it has been witness, — the butchery 
of the persecution of Dioceletian, when the Christians fell 
here by thousands ; the repeated massacres and conflagra- 
tions of the Danes ; the crowning of Saxon and of English 
kings ; the proud processions of kings and queens, nobles, 
mitred prelates, friars, and monks, to offer thanksgivings 
for victory, or penance for sins, from age to age ; and finally, 
the stern visitation of the Reformers and the Cromwellian 
troopers. 

The venerable minster itself bears on its aspect the testi- 
monies of its own antiquity. The short and massy tower 
in the centre, the work of Bishop Walkelin, the cousin of 
the Conqueror, has the very look of that distant age, and to 
eyes accustomed to the lofty and rich towers of some of our 
cathedrals, has an air of meanness. Many people tell you 
that it never was finished ;■ but besides that there is no more 
reason that the tower should remain unfinished through so 
many centuries than any other part of the building, we 
know that it was the character of the time, of which the 
tower of the Norman church of St. Cross affords another 
instance just at hand. In fact the spire was then unknown. 
This tower still exhibits its primitive Norman round-headed 
windows ; in the north transept you see again other Norman 
windows, varying from those of the simplest kind to others 
with the round spandrel, embracing the pointed arch and 
flowing tracery. Towards the east end, again, you catch 
traces of round and trefoiled arch-work, supported on the 



372 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

short Saxon pillar borrowed by the Normans ; and then in 
different parts of the church, every variety of lancet and 
pointed arches, and of perpendicular and florid tracery, 
which mark the progress of English architecture to the time 
of Henry VIII., when it and the Catholic religion ceased 
their career together. 

Having arrived at the west front, we cannot avoid 
pausing to survey the beauty of its workmanship, — 
that of the great William of Wykeham ; its great central 
doorway, with its two smaller side-doors ; the fretted gal- 
lery over it, where the bishop in his pontificals was wont to 
stand and bless the people, or absolve them from the cen- 
sures of the church ; its noble window, rich with perpen- 
dicular tracery ; its two slender lantern turrets ; its crown- 
ing tabernacle, with its statue of the builder ; and its pin- 
nacled side-aisles. But, to use the expressive language of 
Dr. Milner, — " Having now entered the awful pile, by 
that doorway, through which so many illustrious personages 
have heretofore passed in solemn procession ; as the im- 
patient eye shoots through the long-drawn nave to the 
eastern window, glowing with the richest colours of enamel- 
ling ; as it soars up to the lofty vault fretted with infinite 
tracery ; and as it wanders below amidst the various ob- 
jects which the first glance commands ; the most insensible 
spectator must feel his mind arrested with a certain awe, 
and must now experience, if he had never felt them before, 
the mingled sensations of the sublime and beautiful." I 
must confess that of all the cathedrals which I have entered, 
none gave me such a sensation of surprise and pleasure. 
The loftiness, the space, the vast length of the whole un- 
broken roof above, I believe not exceeded by any other in 
England ; the two rows of lofty clustered pillars ; the branch- 
ing aisles, with their again branching and crossing tracery ; 
the long line of the vaulted roof, embossed with armorial 
escutcheons and religious devices of gorgeous colouring ; 
the richly painted windows ; and below, the carved chan- 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 373 

tries and mural monuments, seen amid the tempered light ; 
and the sober, yet delicate hue of the Portland stone, with 
which the whole noble fabric is lined, produce a tout en- 
semble of sublime loveliness which is not easily to be rival- 
led. I could scarcely help exclaiming in the fervid words 
of a living poet, who, more than any other, has succeeded 
in throwing into language the spirit and the beauty of our 
exquisite Anglo-Gothic architecture : — 

For him, ye columns, rear your brows on high ! 
Lift up your heads, great portals of the sky ! 
What fairer dome, save that which heaven expands, 
What worthier seat with temples made with hands, 
Than builders sage here pillared for his throne 1 
For nature's God a work like nature's own : 
Or, where unlike the forms her hands produce, 
Still like in grace, magnificence, and use. 
In new designs, her fair proportion shown ; 
Her likeness traced in structures not her own; 
Her measures followed, harmonies bestowed 
On strange materials in an unknown mode ; 
And half her influence o'er the mind imprest 
By different means, and thence with livelier zest; 
And half her charms to fascinate the heart. 

O noblest work of imitative art ! 
To pile columnar trunks from marble mines, 
Embower their boughs, and interlace with vines ; 
Pile higher still,, and arch a vault on high, 
To shield the storm, and emulate the sky : 
Cross aisles to vistas of her sylvan bower, 
Rear for the sun in heaven a lantern-tower ; 
Adapt each limb with various height and length, 
And bind the whole in unity and strength; 
Copying, abstracted in a different plan, 
The grace'and order of the world and man : 
And scarce with rapture less, and awe, confound, 
And lift to God the wight who gazes round ; 
Than who beneath a cliff sees capes and bays, 
Far tinged with sunset's red and yellowy rays ; 
32 



374 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

Or nightly wandering, hears the hills accord, 

And heavens declare the glory of the Lord, 

When winds and waves through shadowy woods intone, 

And ghastly moonlight chills the glimmering zone. 

Moile's State Trials — Anne Ayliffe for Heresy. 

As the architecture of our Christian churches — the 
architecture which men, blinded by religious prejudice and 
classical education, have, in contempt, styled gothic — is 
" the noblest work of imitative art," so is that passage the 
noblest and most perfect expression of its spirit, its principles 
and pre-eminence, which ever fell from the pen of genius ; 
and I rejoice that we have so far recovered the use of our 
eyes and faculties, as not only to recognise the glory of 
these matchless old fabrics, and to endeavour to emulate 
them — though yet in vain, — but have advanced so far as 
to see a poet arise amongst us, penetrated so absolutely with 
the sense of their grace and true grandeur, as to be able to 
proclaim their triumphant beauty with the most successful 
power. For ages these noblest works of genius were looked 
upon as the mere monuments of the barbarism of our 
ancestors; as wild and gothic vagaries of ignorant men, 
groping along in the " dark ages," and devoid of any prin- 
ciple of beauty, truth, or grandeur. Hackneyed into the 
admiration of everything classical, men went on raving 
about the sublimity of the Grecian architecture, and pro- 
testing that it had exhausted every form of grace and source 
of invention, while before their eyes rose some of the most 
admirable monuments of grace, full of the triumphs of in- 
vention, to the ancients altogether "in an unknown mode." 
No one more admires the severe grace of the Grecian 
architecture than I do ; the majesty of its towering and 
finely proportioned columns, the sublimity of its pediments 
and peristyles, and the inimitable and living beauty of its 
statuary, and storied friezes ; and if one could but gaze on 
the fair structures of Athens and the gigantic piles of Tadmor, 
I have no doubt that we should feel and confess that nothing 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 375 

in that character, and for those climates, ever could or ever 
will surpass them while the world stands. But, if the so- 
called Gothic architecture cannot equal the Grecian in the 
lofty majesty of its columns, the nobility of its peristyles, or 
the grace of its statuary, it can rival it in its capability of 
varied form, and the endless variety of its ornaments. The 
faults of classic architecture are monotony of structure, 
heaviness of mass, and want of adaptability to the needs of 
varying climate. The former defects are felt, where a 
number of buildings in the pure Grecian style are brought 
together ; the latter cannot be remedied without gloom 
within, or violation of unity without. On these very needs 
the Gothic bases some of its most triumphant beauties. In 
that imitation of nature which the Grecian scarcely carries 
further than its columns, the foliage of capitals and cornices, 
the Gothic immeasurably transcends it. Here infinite 
Nature sees — 

In new designs her fair proportions shown ; 

Her likeness traced to structures not her own ; 

Her measures followed, harmonies bestowed > 

On strange materials in an unknown mode. 

She sees man, not only enabled 

To pile columnar trunks from marble mines, -— 

but to 

Embower their boughs, and interlace with vines ; 
Pile higher still, and arch a vault on high, 
To shield the storm and emulate the sky. 

Instead of being able only to receive light from above, 
leaving all open to the elements, or of marring incurably 
the exterior integrity of the structure, windows in this style 
of architecture become one of its greatest means of beauty, 
with their carved tracery, and gorgeous paintings of saints, 



376 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

martyrs, angel messengers, or the divine Saviour himself 
amid the very light of heaven, 

Whose beams, thus hallowed by the scenes they pass, 
Tell round the floor each parable of glass. 

It is true that the original defect of classic architecture 
has been so far overcome by the genius of Anthemius, the 
old architect of Constantinople, of Michael Angelo, and of 
Wren, as to admit of those magnificent domes of Santa So- 
phia, St. Peter's, and St. Paul's ; but even this is a depart- 
ure from the strict classic model, an engrafting upon it of an 
eastern idea ; and the splendid advantages of light, with its 
attendant beauties of tracery, and painting, never can be 
conferred on the classic, while it is an inherent glory of the 
Gothic. 

Pliant in its character as the very nature which it emu- 
lates, it thus enables the throng of worshippers, careless of 
heat or cold, to gather into the very heart of the august 
fane, shielded and sheltered, as in a sacred solitude, to offer 
up their thanks and prayers ; and if required by the faith of 
the congregation, this sanctuary becomes a scene of the 
most sumptuous splendour, and imposing spectacle. There, 
in the hands and in the opinions of that church which 
reared these fabrics — the choir is a spot 

Where, with one heart, all ages and degrees, 
Clothed in their pride, are mingled on their knees 
Before an altar dowered with every worth ; 
The gate of heaven to supplicants on earth ; 
Where all the arts reflect their author's grace ; 
Where priests supreme in probity and place, 
With solemn march, in robes of radiant dyes, 
O'er sainted relics dress the sacrifice. 
Silence and song: the whispered prayer and spoke; 
Flowers, banners, censers, and ascending smoke : 
Dread pageantries, for which man's soul was made ; 
And every charm that brings devotion aid ; 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 377 

On high, in sculptured and in limned design 
His deeds and death ; and he, the Word, in fine, 
Unseen, yet present to ethereal sight, 
Broods o'er the whole, and consecrates the rite. 

Moile. 

Gothic architecture, as we must still call it, for want of a 
better name — the architecture of Christian Europe — is, in 
fact, the poetry of architecture. Every great and perfect 
cathedral is a great and perfect religious Epic. Its storied 
windows, each of which 

Shoots down a stained and shadowy stream of light, 

are so many cantos of the loftiest poetry of the Christian 
faith, the gracious triumphs of the Saviour, or a quaint tradi- 
tionary narrative : every statue in its niche is an historic 
episode : every exquisitely wrought canopy, every heaven- 
seeking turret, every fair pendant, or crocketed finial, is a 
beautiful simile, presenting, to the admiring eye, the loveliest 
revelations of nature, 

In strange materials and an unknown mode. 

And the more we comprehend their real designs ; the more 
we discover of the imaged personages in the splendid cathe- 
drals which are scattered over Europe, but especially in 
Germany, the Netherlands and France, — the more we find 
that they are, in fact, actual monuments of the progress of 
those nations ; histories in stone, and of which every indi- 
vidual part is but the eloquent component of a glorious and 
consistent whole. 

The entrance of this fair fane, however, has carried us 
away from our immediate purpose, though into kindred 
regions of feeling and fancy. Let us now return to it. Let 
us remember that we are but on a visit, and must therefore 
walk on. Were we to linger, and say all that we feel of 
all we see, we must write a book as large as Dr, Milner's. 

32* 



378 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

That old font which catches the eye on our left hand is a 
most curious piece of antiquity, respecting the date and or- 
naments of which antiquaries have been much divided in 
opinion. It is a heavy square mass of dark marble, sup- 
ported on a massy central pillar and four corner ones. It 
is wrought with carved designs of doves and groups of 
quaint human figures, supposed by Milner to represent cer- 
tain legendary acts of St. Nicholas. In its mass and figure 
it strongly reminds one of an ancient cromlech. Around 
the walls are numerous monuments of bishops, deans, no- 
bles, and gentlemen of neighbouring families ; but we must 
leave them to the notice of the spectator, except mentioning 
that that of the celebrated Mrs. Montague is one of them ; 
that Bishop Willis has a fine recumbent effigy by Cheere, an 
artist of great ability, though of unknown name, but who, 
having committed the error of placing the head of the figure 
facing the west instead of the east, the universal custom, is 
said to have suffered the circumstance to prey so strongly 
on his spirits as to occasion his death ; that there are several 
by Flaxman, and one of peculiar interest — that of Dr. 
Joseph Warton, the poet, and master of Wykeham's college 
here. He is represented in his character of schoolmaster, 
with a group of his pupils before him, who are chiseled with 
the most admirable truth of nature. They are genuine 
schoolboys to the very wrinkles of their trousers. Above 
his head are busts of Homer and Aristotle, and that monu- 
ment is surmounted by the classic lyre. There is on the 
same side a monument by Chantry, but not one of his best. 
As you approach the screen of the choir, affixed to the base 
of one of the great clustered pillars, is also a monument that 
must not be passed by. It is that of the celebrated and 
liberal-minded Bishop Hoadley, with a most exquisite me- 
dallion profile of him. 

But, as works of art, the most striking and beautiful 
things of a monumental nature, are the chapels or chantries 
containing the tombs of the great Catholic prelates of this 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 379 

cathedral. Of these there are not less than half a dozen, 
the greater part of which are of the most beautiful designs 
and most delicate and elaborate workmanship. They stand 
detached erections on the floor of 'this great fabric, and 
though two of them only are in the nave, and the other in 
the presbytery, we will here speak of them altogether, as 
things of one character. They contain the tombs of Wyke- 
ham, Edington, Fox, Cardinal Beaufort, Waynflete, and 
Gardiner. The two in the nave are those of Edington and 
William of Wykeham. They are between the great pillars 
of the south aisle. To attempt to describe these chantries 
would be a waste of words. They are open-work chapels, 
chiefly of slender shafts and arches, each of their peculiar 
date, roofed with the richest ceilings, and crowned with 
piles of canopy-work of the most splendid description. So 
delicately, so elaborately are they carved out, that they have 
more the appearance of being wrought in ivory than in 
stone. In these, on stately tombs, the sides of which are 
figured with the richest paneling, lie the effigies of these 
magnificent old prelates ; and here were daily masses chanted 
for the repose of their souls, these chantries being endowed 
with funds for the purpose. 

At the remembrance of this, who is not carried back to 
the days when they were all in full chorus ? Who does not 
seem again to hear 

litanies at noon, 
Or hymns at complin by the rising moon, 
When, after chimes, each chapel echoed round, 
Like one aerial instrument of sound, 
Some vast, harmonious fabric of the Lord's, 
Whose vaults are shells, and pillars tuneful chords. 

Moile. 

They had originally each their own shrine, and were 
adorned with abundance of images, of which the niches only 
now remain. William of Wykeham lies on a tomb of great 



380 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

beauty, the sides of which are covered with panels of trefoil 
arches, and crocketed spandrels, and emblazoned with mitres 
and his armorial shields. His face and figure are remarka- 
bly fine ; and at his feet are seated three little quaint figures 
of monks in a praying attitude. They are said to be three of 
his favourite friars. 

Passing along the south aisle, we come to the chantry of 
Bishop Fox, who was so long prime minister of England, 
and also the patron of Wolsey. Nothing can be more ela- 
borately wrought than this chapel ; nor more beautiful in 
design than those of Cardinal Beaufort and Bishop Wayn- 
flete, at which we next arrive. That of Gardiner, standing 
on the opposite side of the Capitular Chapel to that of Fox, 
is of far inferior merit. 

Had the cathedral possessed no other monuments than 
these it must have been an object of great interest. Their 
singular beauty of design and workmanship, and the charac- 
ter of the men over whose remains they were erected — men 
who played such conspicuous parts in their day — alike con- 
fer that interest on them. The busy and ambitious Beaufort, 
whom Milner, as a Catholic, has naturally endeavoured to 
exculpate, but whom both chroniclers and historians stamp 
so clearly with dark deeds, as fully to justify the celebrated 
scene in Shakspeare, where he " dies and makes no sign !" 
— Wykeham, the great builder and patron of learning — 
Waynflete and Fox ; both statesmen, and founders of col- 
leges ; Waynflete of Magdalen, and Fox of Corpus Christi, 
Oxford ; and the fierce Stephen Gardiner, who will be known 
while the annals of persecution endure. 

In the east part of the church there are many objects of 
great interest. Amongst them, the marble coffin of Richard, 
the second son of the Conqueror, in the south-east aisle, 
who. was killed while hunting in New Forest, before his 
brother Rufus was : the Lady Chapel, in which Bloody 
Mary was married to Philip of Spain ; the chair on which 
she sate on that occasion being still to be seen. In this 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 381 

chapel, as also in the one to the left of it — the Chapel of 
the Guardian Angels, are the remains of old paintings on 
the walls and ceiling, of angels and legendary figures, that 
are curious for their antiquity. 

On the fine screen at the back of the Capitular Chapel, 
and opposite to this chapel of the Virgin, is seen a range of 
canopied niches, in which formerly stood statues of the most 
eminent Saxon kings and bishops, from Kinegils to St. 
Edward, together with Canute, Hardicanute, Queen Emma, 
and, strangely enough, amongst them, Christ and the Virgin 
Mary. At the foot of this screen is also the now blocked- 
up archway, which formerly led down a stone staircase to 
what was called the Holt Hole ; no doubt from the Saxon 
Heilige Hohle, or Holy Cave ; in which were deposited the 
sacred relics and remains of eminent saints, ". through whose 
merits," says an inscription in large letters over the vault, 
"many miracles shine forth." Going round Gardiner's 
chantry into the north-east aisle, we soon pass the monu- 
ment of King Hardicanute, having on it the figure of a 
ship, like those of the old Norwegian kings at Iona. De- 
scending a flight of steps, we find ourselves in the northern 
transept, which has a most stern and ancient look, being no 
other than the ponderous and lofty original Norman fabric, 
built by Walkelin in the reign of the Conqueror. Everything 
here denotes a rude antiquity. There is a dark chapel below 
the organ stairs — the Chapel of the Sepulchre, whither used 
to be great resort in Holy Week, to witness the mass of the 
Passion of our Saviour, as yet celebrated in the Catholic 
countries on the continent. And on the walls are discovered 
rude paintings of the taking down from the cross, the laying 
in the sepulchre, the descent into Limbns, and the appear- 
ance of the Lord to Mary Magdalen, from whose lips the 
word Rabboni is seen to proceed ; with kindred subjects. 
In the open part of the transept, the whole of which was 
adorned with similar paintings, some are yet visible, as a 
colossal figure of St. Christopher carrying the child Jesus, 



382 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

and the Adoration of the Magi. The whole transept is 
highly interesting, and forcibly brings to the imagination 
the rude age in which it was raised, and the awe which 
must there have been excited in the simple minds of the 
half-civilized crowd of worshippers. 

But we have made the circuit of the church without be- 
holding the choir, and we must not quit its precincts without 
entering there. Ascending the flight of steps which lead 
to it, we front that elegant screen with which modern good 
taste has replaced the screen of Inigo Jones, who, blind to 
all the beauty of the Gothic architecture, not only placed 
here a Grecian screen, but also affixed a Grecian bishop's 
throne to the beautiful Gothic canopy-work of the choir. 
In the niches of this screen are two bronze statues of James 
I. and Charles I. We are now on the spot of the ancient 
rood-loft, where formerly stood the great rood, or crucifix, 
with the attendant figures of the Virgin and St. John, of 
vast size and value, being of silver, which were bequeathed 
to the minster by the notorious Archbishop Stigand, before 
the Conquest. As we enter the choir through the door in 
the screen, we are struck with the great beauty of the place. 
Around us rises the rich dark woodwork of the stalls, con- 
trasting well with the pale delicacy of the walls above. 
Overhead swells the fine vault of the roof, with its rich 
tracery, and its central line, and orbs at the junction of its 
timbers, embossed with bold armorial shields of the houses 
of Tudor, Lancaster, and Castile, as united in John of Gaunt 
and Beaufort, with those of various episcopal sees, and 
stretching on to the splendid east window in that direction, 
emblazoned with "the several implements of our Saviour's 
Passion, — the cross, crown of thorns, nails, hammer, pillar, 
scourges, reed, sponge, lance, sword, with the ear of Mal- 
chus upon it, lantern, ladder, cock, and dice ; also the faces 
of Pilate and his wife, of the Jewish high-priest, with a 
great many others, too numerous to be described, but worthy 
pf notice for the ingenuity of design," and the richness of 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 383 

their tints. They, are, indeed, emblazoned in the most 
gorgeous colours ; scarlet, blue, and gold ; and, to a fanciful 
eye, may resemble, many of them, huge sacred beetles of 
lordly shapes and hues. On each side rise up into the 
very roof, the tall pointed windows glowing with the figures 
of saints, prophets, and apostles, who seem to be ranged on 
either hand, in audience of the divine persons in the great 
east window — the Saviour and the Virgin, with apostles 
and other saints. 

But what is the most striking to the eye and mind of the 
spectator, is to behold on the floor of the sanctuary before 
him a plain bevelled stone of dark marble — the tomb of 
William Rufus ; and arranged on the top of the beautiful 
stone partitions on each side of the sanctuary, dividing it 
from the aisles, are six mortuary chests, three on a side, 
containing the bones of many of the most eminent Saxon 
princes. The bones which, from the repeated re-buildings 
and alterings of the cathedral, must have been in danger of 
being disturbed, and the places of their burial rendered 
obscure, or lost altogether, Bishop de Blois, in the twelfth 
century, collected and placed in coffins of lead over the Holy 
Hole. At the rebuilding of the choir, as it was necessary 
again to remove them, Bishop Fox had them deposited in 
these chests, and placed in this situation. The chests are 
carved, gilt, and surmounted with crowns, with the names 
and epitaphs, in Latin verse and black letter, inscribed upon 
them. Beneath them, also, the motto — Est Deo Gracia, 
in black letter ; in Roman character In Domino confido, 
and Sit laus Deo. The remains thus preserved, are those 
of Kinegils, Ethelwolph, here called Jlduljjhus, the father 
of Alfred; Kenewulch, here called Kenelph ; Egbert; 
Rufus ; Queen Emma; Edmund,the son of Alfred; Edred, 
the youngest son of Edward the Confessor ; with those of 
the bishops Wina and Alwin ; and one chest contains the 
mingled fragments of such princes and prelates as were 



354 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

scattered about by what is styled on the chest itself, " the 
sacrilegious barbarism of the year 1642." 

These mortal remains of persons who lived here, most of 
them, more than a thousand years ago, thus strangely 
preserved, realize more palpably to our minds their far-off 
existence, than all the efforts of the most graphic history, 
which now presents them to us as little more than the 
figures of fiction or a dream. As we stood amid the 
chanting of the choir, and the pealing of the organ, while 
the morning sun threw down on them the colours of the 
amethyst and the ruby, they seemed to the imagination like 
the bones of the kings of old romance, to lie enshrined in 
everlasting music and sunshine ; and gave birth to the 
following sonnet by my companion : — 

MATEST-SERVICE EST WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL. 

September 22, 1839. 

A sweet religious sadness, like a dove, 

Broods o'er this place. The clustered pillars high 

Are rosed o'er by the morning sky ; 

And from the heaven-hued windows far above, 

Intense as adoration, warm as love, 

A purple glory deep is seen to lie, 

Turn, Poet, Christian, now the serious eye, 

Where in white vests, a meek and youthful band, 

Chanting God's praise in graceful order stand. 

O hear that music swell far up, and die ! 

Old temple, thy vast centuries seem but years' — 

Where sages, kings, and saints lie glorified ! 

Our hearts are full, our souls are occupied, 

And piety has birth in quiet tears ! 

Richard Howitt. 

But casting our eyes forward, they fall on the " magni- 
ficent screen of the most exquisite workmanship in stone, 
which," Milner justly says, " this or perhaps any other 
nation can exhibit." The canopies and lacework on the 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 385 

upper part, in fact, after examining all the other beautiful 
stone-carving of the cathedral, fill you with equal wonder 
and delight. The place where the high altar formerly- 
stood is now occupied by a painting of the Raising of La- 
zarus, by West ; but what must have been the ancient 
splendour of that, we may learn from the words of Milner, 
authorized by the descriptions of those chroniclers who were 
familiar with it. " The nether part, or antependium, con- 
sisted of plated gold, garnished with precious stones. Upon 
it stood the tabernacle and steps of embroidered work, or- 
namented with pearls, as also six silver candlesticks gilt, 
intermixed with reliquaries wrought in gold and jewels. 
Behind these was a table of small images, standing in their 
respective niches, made of silver adorned with gold and pre- 
cious stones. Still higher was seen a large crucifix with its 
attendant images, those of the Blessed Virgin and St. John, 
composed of the purest gold, garnished with jewels, the gift 
of Henry de Blois, king Stephen's brother. Over this ap- 
pears to have been suspended, from the exquisite stone 
canopy, the crown of King Canute, which he placed there 
in homage to the Lord of the Universe, after the famous 
scene of commanding the sea to retire from his feet, which 
took place near Southampton." 

To conceive what must have been the effect of this gor- 
geous scene, of this altar and sanctuary, thus raised and 
adorned by all the arts, aided by the full pomp of the ritual 
ceremony, on a Catholic audience in those ages, we have 
only to complete the picture by one more passage from the 
master poet of such subjects. 

Thus from the altar's base intoning prayers, 
Mid white-robed youths, then mounting up the stairs, 
A friar of orders gray the service said : 
Oft bent his knees, oft bowed his shaven head ; 
Oft crossed him thrice ; now smote upon his breast* 
Now turning, hailed the multitude, and blest, 
33 



386 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

Choirs answered him with anthems soaring loud, 

Incense curled up, and wreathed on high a cloud. 

In choral ranks the palled procession trod, 

Hymned every saint, and chanted praise to God. 

While through each aisle the faithful gazing stood, 

Or reading knelt, and signed the holy rood ; 

Till heard the warning of a silvery bell, 

To earth all prostrate, bowed the face and fell ; 

The primate rose — the hierarchy up, — 

The priest thrice offered Heaven the host and cup ; 

And all tongues quired, adoring cup and host, 

" Glory to Father, Son and Holy Ghost ! 

We laud, we love, we magnify thy name, 

Thou, who for human sins the Lamb became ! 

Thou, with whose presence heaven and earth are filled ! 

Have mercy, Christ !" They paused : the fane was stilled. 

Alone the friar in accents clear and lowly 

Pursued the chaunt, ' For only thou art holy, 

Thou only wise, thou only the most high !' 

" Lord God of Sabaoth !" burst the fane's reply. 

Then pealed Hosannahs, Hallelujah rung, 

Deep organs shouted with a trumpet's tongue ; 

Through nave and transept rolled the billowy sound, 

And swelled and flooded aisles and arches round; 

Each pillar trembles, kneeling statues nod, 

And walls with men re-echo — thanks to God. 

Moile. 

If even I, bom and educated in that religious body which 
has, more than all others, stripped from worship every ex- 
ternal sign — who feel that true worship is a thing entirely 
spiritual, an elevation of the soul alone towards its Creator, 
and who am deeply sensible of the fearful end to which the 
fascinations of Catholic worship and the pomp of its hier- 
archy were made a means — that of treading on the neck 
of the people with the feet of papal and regal tyranny — if 
even I am almost ready with the poet, under their imme- 
diate influence, to ask 

Oh ! like these moments what in human time 1 
What grander scene 1 What drama more sublime ! 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 3S7 

If even Milton, the stern republican an anti-hierarchist, 
could not help exclaiming — 

O let my due feet never fall 

To walk the studious cloisters pale, 

And love the high, embowered roof, 

With antique pillars massy proof, 

And storied windows, richly dight, 

Casting a dim religious light. 

There let the pealing organ blow 

To the full-voiced quire below, 

In service high and anthems clear, 

As may with sweetness through mine ear, 

Dissolve me into ecstasies, 

And bring all heaven before mine eyes : — 

we must confess that if there be not much abiding religion 
in all this, there is, at least, great poetry. It was to this that 
we owe the inimitable works of the old painters. Catholics 
in spirit, heart and imagination, they have thrown the fer- 
vour of their souls into their works ; and there they remain, 
bidding defiance to all the efforts of modern pencils, which, 
if they are guided by the most perfect art, are yet not dipped 
into the warm fountain of love, and of the old intense 
devotion. When, therefore, we walk in a fabric like this, 
venerable with the flight of nearly a thousand years, and 
build up again in imagination its jewelled shrines, rear aloft 
its glittering rood, replace all its statues of gold, and silver, 
and chiselled stone, and see once more with the mind's eye 
there assembled the stately king's and queens, mitred pre- 
lates, and throngs of proud warriors and nobles of past times, 
amidst the magic tide of music, and the imposing drama of 
high mass, we must prepare to confess that, if the people 
were superstitious, it was not without great temptation ; for 
never did human wit achieve so fair temples, or animate 
them with a pageantry of worship so seducing to the imagi- 
nation. Having awarded these, its peculiar merits, to that 
church which, on the other hand, 



388 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

Yoked mankind and trod, 
With prostrate neck while bowed before his God — 

we now may bid adieu to the cathedral — its most venera- 
ble work in our island. 



But if we had quitted Winchester cathedral without pay- 
ing a visit to the grave of one of the best and most cheerful- 
hearted old men who lie in it, we should have committed a 
great fault. No, we stood on the stone in the floor of Prior 
Silkstede's chapel in the old Norman south transept, which 
is inscribed with the name of Izaak Walton. There lies 
that prince of fishermen, who, when Milner wrote his his- 
tory of this city, was so little thought of that he is not once 
mentioned in the whole huge quarto ! But the restored taste 
of these better times has reinstated the fine old fellow in his 
just niche of public regard. And if the whole kingdom had 
been sought for the most fitting spot of burial for him, none 
could have been found more fitting than this. It is not in 
the neighbourhood of that beautiful river Ichen, whose 
water is so transparent that it looks rather like condensed 
air, and in which his beloved trouts sail about as plain to 
the eye as the birds are on the boughs that overhang it ? It 
is not by that sweetvalleyin which he delighted,and in that 
solemn minster that he loved, and by that daughter whom 
he loved still more, and amid the haunts of those bishops 
and pious men whom he venerated, that the good old disci- 
ple, not only of Christ, but of Andrew and Peter, and of all 
sacred fishermen lies ? — Peace and lasting honour to him ! 
and great thanks should we owe him, had he never left us 
any other sentiment than that which he penned down when 
he heard the nightingales singing, as he sate angling — 
" Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in 
Heaven, when thou affordest bad men such musicon Earth !" 
— Co7nplete Angler, p. 10, Majors edition. 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 389 



WYKEHAM'S COLLEGE. 



The most interesting thing in Winchester, which yet re- 
mains in its antiquity, next to the cathedral, is Wykeham's 
College. Those old grammar-schools which are scattered 
over this country, and so many of which have now become 
vitiated in their management, or nullified in their original 
intentions of good, but into which circumstance it is not our 
present province to enter, have a great deal that is most 
deeply interesting connected with their origin and earlier 
course. In pursuing the object of this work in a future 
volume, we. shall probably have a good deal to say on this 
subject, which our present limits will not allow us to ven- 
ture on. But in the early days of our history, five or six 
centuries ago, when the feudal system was in its strength ; 
when the barriers of temporal rank were as fixed and im- 
passable as gates of adamant ; when the growth of com- 
merce and the spread of literature had not opened so many 
avenues to distinction — the Church was the only path from 
the lower walk of life to eminence, and the old endowed 
grammar-school the sole narrow gate by which genius born 
in the cabin of poverty could emerge from its obscurity, and 
assert its celestial origin in the face of day. There was no 
rising from the clod to the command of armies, for even the 
common soldiers of the army were of the rank of gentle- 
men. There was no great highway of law then to the 
order of nobility, the judges were of the privileged class, 
and the great offices of state were commonly in the hands of 
churchmen. But every now and then, spite of all these bar- 
riers, there arose from the forest or the hamlet the possessor 
of the divine power of genius, who made his way to the 
councils of kings and the arbitrium of nations. The herd- 
boy, or the son of the ranger, with his bright face and pass- 
ing bow, graceful as if dictated by gentlest blood and the 
sweet tuition of a high-born and high-minded mother, 

33* 



390 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

attracted the eye of the lord of the soil — and was placed 
on the foundation of the old grammar-school. Once there, 
the wings of native and irrepressible genius bore him above 
the heads of all competitors, and above every barred portal 
on the road to fame. He became the statesman, the influ- 
ential prelate, whose eloquence and sagacity were more 
powerful than all the rank and wealth of the mightiest 
temporal barons ; whose barest word bore down spears and 
shields, and laid the subtlest schemes of policy in the dust ; 
and far beyond that, he became the builder of palaces and 
founders of colleges, which were to remain for thousands 
of years, and serve as models of architectural designs, and 
lamps of intellectual light to this nation and its future gene- 
rations, influencing them more or less for ever. 

One, and a single instance, of this nature, was William 
of Wykeham himself. He was a poor boy of the neigh- 
bouring town of Wickham, whose father was a person so 
obscure that his name is even a matter of dispute. William, 
however, attracted the regard of Nicholas Uvedall, the lord 
of the manor, who sent him to the old grammar-school in 
Winchester, which stood on the very spot on which his 
college now stands. With that fine sensibility which is one 
of the essential qualities of genius, William of Wykeham 
seems to have been vividly impressed with the circum- 
stances of his boyish life. His grateful attachment to the 
place of his education, no doubt led him, in the after period 
of his power and fame, to build this beautiful school on its 
site, and to confer on it far ampler advantages. The piety 
of his heart led him every morning to attend the mass per- 
formed by an old monk of the name of Pekis, before an 
image of the Blessed Virgin in the cathedral ; and such were 
the impressions, however fixed on his mind, that he not only 
regarded the Virgin through life as his peculiar patroness, 
embellishing his sacred buildings with multiplied images of 
her, but had his tomb placed on the very site of her chapel, 
where he was wont to attend her orisons with Pekis. 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 391 

There is a great resemblance between the careers of 
Wykeham and Wolsey, save that Wykeham displayed a 
far higher conscientiousness of character. Wykeham was 
distinguished, like Wolsey, for his princely love of archi- 
tecture, and by that was first recommended to his great 
patron, Edward III. For him he pulled down the greater 
part of the old castle of Windsor, and rebuilt it in a much 
more magnificent style. It was said that he caused to be 
inscribed on the round tower at Win !sof, when he had 
finished it, the equivocal sentence : ffljis matte OTnfteljam : but 
it was his transcendent genius, in fact, which " made Wyke- 
ham." His architectural works at Dover, Queenborough, 
Windsor, and other castles for the king ; the building of his 
two colleges — this, and New College, Oxford — and his 
rebuilding the nave of his cathedral, mark him as the great- 
est architectural genius of the age. But he also, like 
Wolsey, became the king's chief minister, being succes- 
sively secretary of state, keeper of the privy seal, chan- 
cellor, and most confidential counsellor of the crown. As 
in Wolsey's case, his sovereign heaped on him ecclesiastical 
preferments most lavishly, and all these honours brought 
upon him the envy of the courtiers. When the king be- 
came old and inert, his enemies prevailed by charges of 
embezzlement, which they would not allow him to answer, 
to get him disgraced. Being then satiated with court life, 
he retired to his diocese, and employed himself in those 
great designs which have covered his name with so much 
honour ; showing himself the friend as well of his country 
as of the poor, twenty of whom he regularly supported as 
part of his family. Had his ambition been as lawless, and 
his fall as signal as that of Wolsey, he would have figured 
largely in the hands of the historians ; as it is, he has been 
passed over by many without a tithe of his true fame, and 
it is remarkable that his name is not once mentioned in 
Hume's account of the reign of Edward III. 

This old college is the more interesting: as being " the 



392 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

parent of Eton, and the model of Westminster." The build- 
ing of it was begun in the year 1387, and when completed, 
at the end of six years, it was incorporated and endowed 
for the teaching of seventy poor scholars in grammatical 
learning : and over it were appointed a warden ; ten secu- 
lar priests, perpetual fellows ; three priests' chaplains ; 
three clerks and sixteen choristers : and for the instruction 
of the scholars, a schoolmaster and an undermaster — which 
are supposed to represent so many scriptural characters : — 
the warden and ten priests, the Apostles, Judas being 
omitted ; the seventy scholars and two masters, the seventy- 
two disciples ; three chaplains and three clerks, the six 
fathful deacons ; and the sixteen choristers, the four greater 
and twelve lesser prophets. 

Such continues the establishment; though there are taught 
a considerable number of youths besides, who are not on 
the foundation. The college is built round two courts, with 
towers over each gateway. As you enter the first, you ob- 
serve a figure of the Virgin in a niche ; again, on the tower 
facing you, leading into the second court, you observe 
three niches with rich canopies, occupied by the Virgin, 
the angel Gabriel, and the founder himself. Wykeham is 
in the attitude of invoking the blessing of the Virgin, while 
she again is evidently in the act of sending Gabriel to ac- 
complish his prayer. On reaching the other side of the 
tower, that is, in the second court, you find the same figures 
there too, as well as another statue of the Virgin on the 
east end of the church. AH this bears testimony to Wyke- 
ham's profound veneration for his patroness, to whom, 
indeed, he dedicated both his colleges. This second court, 
with its noble chapel and tower, one of the most elegant 
objects in the general view of the city, is strikingly beauti- 
ful : but we have gone at such length into the description 
of the cathedra], that we must not here allow ourselves to 
dwell on architectural particulars. The chapel is lofty, 
finely roofed, and the large windows richly emblazoned with 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 393 

figures of prophets, apostles, kings, and saints male and 
female. The large east window is occupied with the 
genealogical tree of our Saviour. At the bottom you see 
Jesse lying, and the tree taking root in him, spread itself 
upwards full of kings and sages, having the Crucifixion in 
the centre, and the Resurrection at the top. There is also 
an altar-piece by a French artist, of considerable merit, — 
the Salutation of the Virgin. But perhaps the most curious 
things about the chapel are the ancient stall-seats now affixed 
to the wall of the ante-chapel. These have their seats so 
fixed upon hinges that those who sit in them can only 
maintain their position by balancing themselves with care, 
and resting their elbows on the seat-arms ; so that if the 
monks who used them dropped asleep during divine service, 
the seats came forward and pitched them headlong upon 
the floor, — nay, if they only dozed and nodded the least in 
the world, the hard oaken seat clapped against the hard 
oaken back, and made a noise loud enough to attract the 
attention of the whole audience. Nothing ever was more 
cleverly contrived to keep people awake at church or chapel; 
and, no doubt, most of us know where they would be es- 
pecially useful now. 

At the corner of this quadrangle, west of the chapel, a 
flight of steps leads up to the Refectory. In ascending to 
this we pass the Lavatory, with which all the old convents 
and colleges were furnished, and so placed thatall might wash 
before meals. The Refectory, or dining-hall itself, takes us at 
once back to the old times, being furnished with its dais at the 
head end, its screen at the entrance ; and its lofty groined roof, 
with its large coloured busts of kings and bishops for corbels; 
having a lantern in its centre to admit of the escape both of 
the effluvia from the table, and of the smoke from the fire 
in the centre. Here the scholars take their meals ; their 
dinners every day consisting of mutton, except on Wednes- 
days, when they have roast and boiled beef. One hogshead 
of beer per day is allowed to the school. The scholars give 



394 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

the name of dispers to their breakfasts, suppers, and lun- 
cheons. At the lower end of the hall stands a massy octa- 
gon chest of oak, furnished with a lid and padlock, into 
which is daily thrown all the broken meat, which is given 
to twenty-four poor women, eight of whom receive day by 
day in rotation. In a chamber adjoining the kitchen is one 
of the most singular spectacles imaginable, and which 
speaks forcibly to the imagination of the olden times, and 
their quaint modes of admonition. This is a memento ad- 
dressed to the servants of the establishment, in the shape of 
a large painting on the wall, a bircocervus or man-animal ; 
styled The Trusty Servant, and having its virtues ex- 
plained in the following Latin and English lines : — 

EFFIGIUM SERVI SI VIS SrECTARE PROBATI, 
QlJISQUIS ES HJEC OCULOS PASCAT IMAGO TUOS. 
PORCINUM OS QUOCUNQUE CIBO JEJUNIA SEDAT. 

H.EC SERA consilium ne fluat, arcta premit: 

Dat patientiem asinus dominis jurgantibus AUREM : 

CERVUS HABET CELERES IRE, REDIRE PEDES, 

LiEVA DOCET MULTUM TOT REBUS ONUSTA LABOREM. 

VESTIS munditiam: DEXTERA operta fidem: 
Accinctus GLADIO; CLYPEO munitus : et inde 

VeL SE, VEL DOMINUM, QUO TUEATUR, HABET. 

A TRUSTY SERVANT'S portrait would you see, 
This EMBLEMATIC FIGURE well survey : 
The PORKER'S SNOUT not nice in diet shows. 
The PADLOCK SHUT no secrets he'll disclose. 
PATIENT the ASS his master's wrath will bear, 
swiftness in errand the STAGG'S FEET DECLARE : 
Loaded his LEFT HAND apt to labour saith : 
The VEST his neatness, OPEN HAND his faith. 
Girt with his SWORD, his SHIELD upon his arm, 
Himself and master he'll protect from harm. 

The school, which stands a detached building in the in- 
ciosure of the play-ground, though itself a comparatively 
modern erection, being built in 1687, yet it is fitted up in 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 395 

the simple style of the old times, and gives you all the 
feeling of them. The school-room is lofty, and ninety feet 
long by thirty-six wide. Over the door without, is a fine 
metal statue of Wykeham, cast and presented to the college 
by Caius Gabriel Cibber, whose wife the inscription states 
to have been a relation of the founder. Within, everything 
is of the most primitive character. At each end of the 
school stands an old-fashioned chair, one for the master, 
and one for the second master — with their crimson cush- 
ions ; and on the floor, instead of that succession of desks 
and benches, which is found in modern schools, there 
is here and there, a sort of massy square frame-work 
of oak, raised on as massy square posts about a foot, or 
something more, from the ground. This serves the scho- 
lars for seats, every one having on this rude kind of frame 
his school box standing by him, which, having an inner lid, 
supplies him at once with a reading desk and a depository 
for his books. These boxes are termed Scobs. And in this 
primitive style, no doubt, studied the scholars of Wyke- 
ham's own times, and also Wykeham himself. On one end 
of the school-room, in unical letters, are the following pithy 
orders, with significant symbols opposite — 

AUT DISCE (either learn) . S A ™tre and crosier, as the expected 

*■ ' £ reward 01 learning. 

ATT m nicnnnn / j n C An inkhorn to sign, and a sword 

AUT DISCEDE (or depart) . > . c , b . 

v r J £ to enforce expulsion. 

MANET SORS TERTIA CLEDI, C A gcour 
(the third choice is, to be flogged). £ ° 

4 

At the other end are inscribed the rules, in Latin, for the 
conduct of the scholars in church, at school, in the hall, in 
the court, or play-ground, in the chambers, and in the town, 
going to the hill. 

In the school it is directed, — " Let each one repeat his 
lesson in an under-tone to himself, in a clear voice to the 
master." From this too, we may infer that the old-fashioned 
plan of murmuring over tasks to themselves, whence you 



396 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

still hear such a hum in a village school, is allowed to the 
boys. The next rule, however, adds, " Let no one molest 
his neighbour," which it must be rather difficult to avoid, 
if humming lessons be permitted. In the hall, he that says 
grace, is to repeat it distinctly ; all the rest standing upright 
in their places and answering him. In the court, the old 
propensity to cutting and carving names and initials on the 
building, is made strictly illegal. In the chambers each one 
is to study in the evening, and on going to the hill they are 
to observe prescribed limits. These rules are all flavoured 
with antiquity. Twice a week, from time immemorial, it 
has been the practice of the scholars to go to the hill, that 
is, St. Catherine's Hill, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for two 
hours each time ; which is a fine place for air and exercise. 
Their bed-rooms are on the ground-floor ; each scholar has 
a separate bed of the simplest construction, and by his bed 
stands a tall slender kind of desk, which probably serves 
him both as desk and wardrobe ; but here, as the rule indi- 
cates, it is evident that he is expected to spend his evening 
in study ; and here, during play-hours, the scholars also can 
retire for the same purpose. Two or three bed-rooms ac- 
commodate all the scholars on the foundation, and on the 
walls are inscribed in white letters on a black ground, the 
names of those boys who have gone hence to New College, 
Oxford ; many of them having been prefects, or senior boys. 
Such is the school which Wykeham founded, and which, 
in his day, Joseph Warton taught ; and from which have 
gone forth, besides a multitude of archbishops, bishops, and^ 
other eminent men — the learned Groeyn, and Udal, Sir 
Thomas Brown, the antiquary, Lowth, the poet and divine, 
Joseph Warton, as scholar as well as master, and his bro- 
ther Thomas Warton, a far greater poet, full of the spirit of 
nature and of chivalry, whose lays furnished no slight in- 
spiration to Sir Walter Scott ; Sir Henry Wotton ; Otway 
Sommerville, Pitt, Philips, Young, and Collins ! As I be- 
held the fine set of lads eager at their game of cricket in 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 397 

their playground, I wondered whether any of them would 
rival the fame of their predecessors. 

One of the most delightful places in this college we have 
not yet spoken of, and that is the cloisters. These lie on 
the south-side of the chapel, and form one of the most deli- 
cious seclusions imaginable. They inclose a quadrangle of 
one hundred and thirty-two feet square, upon which they 
open with elegant Gothic mullions ; and are roofed with 
Irish oak, the rafters of which form a circular vault, and 
we were positively assured by the porter, that no spider 
was ever known to weave its web upon them ; that they 
were never swept, and yet were perfectly free from cob- 
webs, as we might see, though the spiders had freely stretch- 
ed their lines from one mullion to another of the cloister 
front. The least that can be said is, that it is curious if 
true. Under foot, the pavement. is covered with ancient 
monumental brasses, and " forlorn hie jacets," being the 
burying place of the fellows and scholars of the institution 
for four centuries. The whole quadrangle is filled with the 
most velvet turf, forming a refreshing contrast with the gray 
walls around, while before the open gallery of the cloisters 
grows up sweet bays and jasmines, and in the midst of the 
green area rises one of the most perfect little Gothic chapels 
imaginable ! It was built for a chantry, where a monk 
used to perform a daily mass for the dead; but is now the 
library of the establishment. It has all the attributes of a 
chapel in miniature — the groined roof — the emblazoned 
window, and besides that now, a glorious array of most 
valuable old works. What would one not give for such a 
perfect place of meditation, and such a fairy study! 
Amongst the curious contents of this unique library, is the 
pedigree of Wykeham, on a long roll of vellum, traced up 
to Adam ! 

A robin-redbreast was the only musing monk which we 
found in these cloisters. He went with us all round, hop- 

34 



398 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

ping from opening to opening, or perching on the bushes 
near us. " Ay," said the porter, " that is the chapel robin, 
it regularly attends service." — The robin is a monk indeed. 



THE HOSPITAL OF ST. CROSS. 

Following the banks of the river, we strolled down the 
meadows to St. Cross. We made a divergence to the left 
to climb the bold down of St. Catherine, attracted by the 
outline of its ancient camp, and taking a view of the city 
and country far round from thence, again plunged into the 
Valley, and following a pleasant footpath, soon stood at the 
gates of St. Cross. It is impossible to go over the different 
objects of antiquity at Winchester, without beginning to be- 
lieve that you are gone back into antiquity itself. The 
cathedral with all its Saxon monuments and memorials ; 
the college with its primitive air and habits ; and then this 
hospital, built in the days of King Stephen — a hospital 
still, with living brethren, and its fabric as entire as in the 
day of Henry de Blois. We passed on our left the old re- 
fectory, called "$luntrreTi:=J&cnnes==?»aU," because there a hun- 
dred poor men were daily entertained ; on our right having 
the kitchen where the cookery was done for such a com- 
pany ; and if the hundred men were there no longer, we 
had no sooner presented ourselves at the porter's lodge 
than we found the porter still at his post ; and, as bound by 
the rules of De Blois, and just as was the wont of the olden 
time, he immediately craved us to partake of the hospitality 
of the house. 

Not a stranger, from the days of King Stephen to the 
present hour, on presenting himself at that wicket, but was, 
and is, entitled to receive bread and beer. Accordingly the 
horn, a genuine vessel of the good old times, no glass or 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 399 

crockery of these artificial days, was produced, and the 
eleemosynary bread ; and we ate and drank, and praised 
great Henry de Blois, and the porter, that the bread they 
gave us was good bread, and the beer was good beer, for, 
sober itself, it would keep all who drank it sober, so that 
even a teetotaller, though a kind of creature unknown to 
De Blois and his times, might taste it with a conscience, and 
no weary wayfarer need dread its bewildering him on his 
journey. Two gallons of beer and two loaves of bread are 
daily distributed to those who seek relief; another fact tes- 
tifying to the wisdom of the brewer, and the moderation of 
the poor, who scorn to take undue advantage of such 
generous hospitality. 

This celebrated hospital was, like all ancient buildings, 
of a quadrangular form inclosing a court. Three sides of 
the square are yet complete ; the fourth being removed, has 
opened a cheerful prospect into the green fields. The re- 
maining buildings are of the most venerable description. A 
strong gateway tower gives entrance to the court, and on 
its outer front aloft, in a fair niche kneels, not De Blois, but the 
second founder of this hospital and builder of this tower, the 
notorious Cardinal Beaufort, in his cardinal's hat and robes. 
Two other niches in a line with this are now empty, but it 
is supposed that the one towards which Beaufort is kneel- 
ing contained the Holy Cross, the original object of devotion 
here ; and the other a statue of St. John, the great patron of 
hospitalers. Milner says, " in the cornice over the gateway 
of this tower we behold the cardinal's hat displayed ; to- 
gether with the busts of his father John of Gaunt, of his 
royal nephews Henry IV. and V., and of his predecessor 
Wykeham. In the spandrels on each side appear the 
founder's arms, viz., France and England quarterly. The 
centre boss in the groining of the gateway is carved into a 
curious cross, composed of leaves and surrounded with a 
crown of thorns." 

Stepping into the court, we see on our left a cloister por- 



400 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

tico, or ambulatory, where the brethren could take exercise 
in bad weather, while its open front freely admitted the air 
and gave them a view of the whole quadrangle. In the 
centre of this is a projecting recess, in which stands an old 
table, said to have been used by Charles II. when encamped 
on St. Catherine's Hill. This cloister is terminated by the 
church, which we shall visit presently ; and over it are the 
rooms called the Nuns' Rooms, formerly occupied by the 
three hospital sisters who attended the sick ; and also the 
rooms where the sick brethren themselves were lodged. 
At the east end of these apartments is seen a window open- 
ing into the church, so that the sick brethren might attend 
to the service as they lay in their beds. The opposite side 
of the court consists of the houses of the brethren, who have 
three small chambers each and a garden. The brethren 
are single men (or if married men, their families are not 
admitted), and wear a blaek gown with a silver cross on 
the breast. The porter, who is one of the brethren, is 
allowed to have his wife, so that she may act as cook to the 
brethren. 

The third side of the court, being that in a line with the 
entrance tower, consists of the brethren's hall, and the 
master's residence. This wing has altogether a great air 
of picturesque antiquity. The keep-like gateway tower, 
the old Gothic porch and flight of steps ascending to the 
hall door ; the buttresses and chimneys of the master's house 
running up the outside. The present master is the Earl of 
Guildford, and the house is occupied by the chaplain. 

Bishop De Blois, Wykeham, and Beaufort, were the 
grand founders and benefactors of St. Cross. Wykeham in 
his time found the institution much plundered, and manfully 
and with infinite pains, by processes both in the spiritual 
and temporal courts, compelled the guilty to restore its 
rightful funds. So that at one time it not only maintained 
in the house seventy persons, clergy and laity together, but 
also one hundred out-members, who receive daily their 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 401 

meat and drink, and on the anniversary of the founder three 
hundred. Like many other charitable institutions, how- 
ever, in Henry VIIl.'s day, it was ruthlessly stripped of 
much of its income ; and now whatever may be its re- 
venues, it supports only these thirteen brethren, and gives 
away the small doles already mentioned. By the ancient 
rule, the brethren received daily a loaf of good wheaten 
bread of three pounds four ounces weight, and a gallon and 
a half of good beer ; a pottage called Mortrel, made of 
milk, and Wastelbread ; a dish of flesh or fish, as the 
day should require, with a pittance for their dinner ; like- 
wise one dish for their supper. 

This, it must be confessed, was a bountiful dealing ; and 
compared with which, the present allowance of the brethren 
appears but meager, — three quarts of beer per day each 
man, and five small loaves of twenty-two ounces each in 
six days. Every Saturday one hundred pounds of meat 
are taken in for the following week's consumption ; that 
is, reckoning fourteen persons, the porter's wife being one, 
seven pounds per week, or a pound per day each individual. 
Then, there are five gaudy days in the year, on each of 
which a sirloin of sixty pounds is cooked, and mince-pies 
and plum-porridge. On ordinary days the brethren cook 
their own provisions at their houses, but on gaudy days the 
cooking is done in the old kitchen attached to the hall ; and 
the roast is then divided amongst them, each taking his 
portion to his own house. Thus it appears there is now no 
dining in the hall whatever. The hall and kitchen, how- 
ever, would befit the feast-day of a feudal baron. They 
are of the most substantial and ancient aspect. The kitchen, 
with its huge fire-grate, and spit turned by its huge smoke- 
jack; its massy dresser and other apparatus in accordance. 
The hall of the genuine old fashion, with its dais and screen, 
and music-gallery over it ; tables of ponderous character, 
and its groined roof, which, like the roof of the cloisters of 
Wykeham's College, the porter's wife assured us was of 

34* 



402 "VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

Irish oak, and never was touched by a brush or defiled by 
a single cobweb. 

At the head of the hall is, what is, however, not often 
found in our English halls, though common in religious 
houses on the continent, — a portable shrine, which, when 
closed, has the appearance of a cupboard, but, when 
opened, reveals the Virgin and Child and other holy per- 
sonages. 

But, after all, the church is the glory of St. Cross, and is, 
indeed, one of the most interesting monuments of architec- 
tural antiquity in the kingdom. With the exception of the 
front and upper story of the west end, which are supposed 
to be the work of Wykeham and Beaufort, the Avhole is the 
work of Henry de Blois, " and seems," says Milner, " to 
have been an effort of that great encourager of the arts to 
produce a style of architecture more excellent, and better 
adapted to ecclesiastical purposes, than had hitherto been 
known. This style, accordingly, soon after made its ap- 
pearance in a regular shape. The building before us seems 
to be a collection of architectural essays, with respect to 
the disposition and form, both of the essential parts, and of 
the subordinate ornaments. Here we find the ponderous 
Saxon pillar, of equal dimensions in its circumference and 
in its length, which, however, supports an incipient pointed 
arch. The windows and arches are some of them short, 
with semicircular heads, and some of them immoderately 
long, and terminating like a lance. Others are in the horse- 
shoe form; of which the entrance into the north poreh is the 
most unique specimen. In one place we have a curious 
triangular arch. The capitals and bases of the columns 
alternately vary in their form, as well as in their ornaments. 
The same circumstance is observable in the ribs of the 
arches, especially in the north and south aisles ; some of 
them being plain, and others profusely embellished, and in 
different styles, even within the same arch. Here we view 
almost every kind of Saxon and Norman ornament ; the 



VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 403 

chevron, the billet, the hatched, the pellet, the fret, the 
indented, the nebule, the wavy, all superiorly executed. 
But what is chiefly deserving of attention in this ancient 
church is what may perhaps be considered as the first 
regular step to the introduction of that beautiful style of 
architecture properly called the Pointed, and abusively the 
Gothic:' 

Milner here alludes to the first apparent discovery of the 
pointed arch, by observation of the effect of round arches 
intersecting each other — an effect made conspicuous by the 
rows of intersecting arches on these walls. When Milner 
says, " and, accordingly this style soon made its appearance 
in a regular shape," he does not mean the style of this 
church, but the one indicated by this effect ; that is, the 
pointed style ; for the general style of this church itself is 
Saxon, or rather that adoption of the Saxon by the Normans, 
into which they introduced their own varieties. It is a 
mixed or transition style, containing the rudiments of those 
future orders which gradually developed themselves into the 
simple pointed, or Early English, the Perpendicular or the 
Florid. 

The great and predominant character of the style of this 
church, therefore, is the Saxon — the massy round pillars, 
round arches, with the billet and zigzag moulding, mixed 
with that variety of ornament which it seems capable of ad- 
mitting without, violation of its unity. Thus we have 
scarcely two pillars, two basis, two capitals, two corbels, or 
two arches alike. There is introduced that variety, of which 
nature exhibits the beauty, without any discordance, but, on 
the contrary, a heightened effect of pleasure. It is wonder- 
ful in what a perfect condition the noble old fabric is brought 
down to us, enabling us to see in the stern and plain cha- 
racter of this church the character of the age. Here, we 
have not those comparatively modern embellishments which 
we find in the choir and nave of the cathedral, but a stern- 
ness, a nakedness, and a solidity, more allied to the tran- 



404 VISIT TO WINCHESTER. 

septs of the Norman Walkelin. We see the naked rope 
depending from the belfry into the church below ; beneath 
our feet are tiles, no doubt originally imitated from the Ro- 
man ones, but bearing the figures of quaint lions and other 
animals, and sundry Saxon zigzags and wavings, and on 
some the old English words, yjjabe J&outie, or Remember ! 
that is, most probably, the care of your own soul, or to pray 
for those of others. 



Here we bid adieu to Winchester. Long as its historic 
ground and beautiful antiquities have been overlooked by 
the multitude, I imagine they will hereafter become much 
more known, and afford a great degree of pleasure to our 
countrymen. Steam, which is laying open the beauties and 
the historic treasures of the kingdom to its inhabitants, has 
taken its way through Winchester, and brought it within 
little more than two hours' distance of the metropolis. 
What is more, it has laid it in the direct line of what will be 
one of the most attractive routes to our summer tourists — 
to Southampton, the Isle of Wight, and back to town by 
Portsmouth. Who, therefore, on this round of enjoyment, 
will not drop down at Winchester, where so much of high 
interest may be seen in a single day, or even in a few hours ? 
As I sat on St. Giles's Hill, pondering on all the past history 
of the place, suddenly came the steam-engine with its train, 
fuming and flying through the quiet district. The effect was 
startling. The two extremes of English history were brought 
suddenly and unexpectedly together ; and I could almost 
imagine the old Saxon kings, upspringing from their sleep 
in the cathedral, to inquire what new and strange power 
had burst into their dreamy and so long undisturbed domi- 
nion. The restless spirit of the new has, indeed, broken in ; 
— it cannot wake the dead, but it will bring to the living a 
better knowledge of the old ! 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE. 



ALFIERI AND ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND. 

It would be curious to bring into one view the visits to 
England of those foreigners who have exercised a signal in- 
fluence on the destinies of their own nation, and thence on 
those of mankind in general, and to take a glance at their 
places of abode while here. It would be surprising how 
little in accordance would frequently be found to be their 
haunts and habits, with the character which they have left 
indelibly stamped on the annals of their time. The Empe- 
ror Charles V. feteing and frolicking with Henry VIII. at 
Whitehall, Hampton Court, Greenwich, or Winchester ; Peter 
the Great of Russia, driving his sledge through the fine old 
holly hedges of John Evelyn's house at Woolwich, as his re- 
laxation from the fatigues of ship-carpentering in the dock- 
yards, which he was there practically learning ; Marat, the 
bloody Marat, the friend of the ferocious Robespierre, who fell 
by the hand of Charlotte Corday, teaching French at adissent- 
ing academy at Warrington in Lancashire, intimate with all 
the AikinsandBarbaulds, and some of whose pupils are yet 
living, of the most opposite characters, both to their tutor 
and to another of his pupils, the famous fighting Fitzger- 
ald of duelling notoriety. Louis Philippe pursuing the 
same humble vocation at Richmond : Dr. Franklin busy in 
London as a journeyman printer; La Mennais seeking em- 
ployment in London, and refused as stupid-looking ; or 
Mina, or Miguel, the lions of London drawing-rooms, sur- 
prising all the young ladies with their meekness and gentle- 



406 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

ness, the more to surprise them afterwards with the news 
of their bloody deeds. Two of the most extraordinary men, 
however, of the last century who have made any consider- 
able sojourn in this country, are Alfieri and Rousseau. 
They were both the apostles of change ; the effect of whose 
writings have been, as in the case of Rousseau, too obvious 
to need comment, and which in neither case have yet ceased 
to operate. It may be said that the spirit of the dramas of 
Alfieri is, indeed, the spirit of modern Italy, and will, unless 
all ordinary prognostics fail, yet show itself in events that 
will agitate all Europe. Like the volcanic fires of that 
country, it is burning on, and, though it only shows itself 
now and then, in fugitive scintillations and abortive flashes, 
it is still accumulating for a grand explosion, which will 
either annihilate the oppressors or the oppressed. When- 
ever that day arrives, the name of Alfieri will be the watch- 
word, as his works have long been the food, of liberty. 

Yet how few in England who are ardent admirers of 
Alfieri's impassioned tragedies, reflect how much of his his- 
tory and his fortunes were mixed up with this country. His 
exploits here in his early youth made noise enough at the 
time, but that time is gone by ; and we read his works, 
treading on the very ground on which he then trod, yet 
thinking of him only as the fiery Italian poet in his own Italy. 

Alfieri made no less than three visits to England, the first 
and second of which were of many months each ; in fact, 
he spent altogether little less than two years here, and has 
left the following testimony of his attachment to the country. 
" England, and especially the metropolis, highly delighted 
me at first sight. The roads, the females, the absence of 
mendicity, the neatness and convenience of the houses, the 
incessant bustle in the suburbs as well as in the capital, all 
conspired to fill my mind with delight. In my future visits 
- to England, I never found any reason to change this favour- 
able opinion. ... In fact, after much travelling and ob- 
servation, the only two countries of Europe in which I have 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 407 

uniformly wished to fix my residence, are England and 
Italy ; because in the former art has everywhere changed 
and subjugated nature ; and because in the latter, nature 
always appears predominant, and in its pristine force and 
vigour." — Autobiography of A Ifieri, vol. i. pp. 161-164. 

A great similarity has been traced betwixt the character 
and fortunes of Alfieri and those of Lord Byron, and cer- 
tainly the parallel is not a little curious. By following the 
lines of Alfieri's existence, we cannot avoid seeing the cor- 
respondent one of Lord Byron. Alfieri was of noble birth, 
and by the death of the immediate heir (his elder brother) 
became the head of his family and possessor of the paternal 
estates. His father died in his infancy ; and he fell into 
the hands of a guardian, who kept him at the public school 
at Milan. Here he grew up amongst the other children of 
the aristocracy, with little care for his advance in his studies 
— impatient of classical fagging, but fond of horses and 
riding, and all the sports of young men of property. He 
had one sister, to whom he was always extremely attached, 
so much so as eventually to make over the bulk of his 
property to her. During his minority he exhibited the 
most passionate temperament, and on any opposition to his 
will, fell into the most moody and obstinate fits. Because 
his tutor put some restraint on him, he shut himself up for 
six months in his rooms ; abandoned his fashionable and 
expensive dress, and fine clean linen, of which he was very 
fond ; allowed his hair to grow ; lay in bed till noon, and 
then, dragging his bed to the side of the fire, there crouched 
on it for the rest of the day, smoking and gazing fixedly on 
the flame. The moment he became liberated from his 
tutelage, he set off on his travels, and went over the whole 
of Europe, from Norway and Russia, to Spain and Portugal. 
In these journeys he appeared delighted to show his con- 
tempt for kings and tyrants. In all of them he was attended 
by his faithful servant Elias. At his first visit to England 
he was only nineteen, and vied with the young nobles in 



408 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

their passion for horses,* and driving of coaches, and boasts 
that in the crush of carriages and battle of coach-poles at 
Ranelagh he always came off conqueror; and always with- 
out injury to horses or vehicle. In England, in Holland, 
in Spain, in Italy, everywhere he fell into most desperate 
love affairs. Lady Morgan has justly said that in even 
such affairs he displayed his pride ; " he chose the wife of 
a British peer for his mistress, and the widow of a legitimate 
king for his reputed consort." 

This mistress was the beautiful but licentious Lady 
Ligonier. Alfieri was then only two-and-twenty — the 
empty, fashionable, dissipated Count Alfieri. For this lady 
he committed the greatest extravagances ; dislocated his 
collar-bone, with leaping a fiery horse at a gate in mere 
wantonness of excitement ; disguised himself in a post-boy's 
dress, and scaled the walls of Cobham Park with his left 
arm in a sling, and his naked sword in his right hand; 
fought a few days afterwards, and in the same condition, a 
sword-duel with Lord Ligonier in the Green Park, and 
after receiving a thrust in the arm, bound it up and went 
to the opera. The trial and divorce of Lady Ligonier oc- 
casioned him to leave the country, and he returned to Italy, 
taking with him a number of the finest English horses, 
which he got across the Alps with about as much trouble 
as Hannibal passed them with his army ; though he had 
two men to look after each horse. At one time he sported 
sixteen most splendid horses. 

The "reputed consort" was the widow of no other per- 
son than " Prince Charlie," the hero of the Rebellion of 
forty-five — the last Pretender. This lady, styled the Coun- 
tess of Albany, who was only about twenty-five when he 

* " I have got my saddle-horses here, and have ridden and am riding 
all about the country." — Byron, in life, vol. iv. p. 14. All through 
Lord Byron's journal and letters, we find him talking of his saddle-horses 
and riding exploits. 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL, 409 

fell in love with her at the age of twenty-eight, and with 
whom he spent the remainder of his life, was not only a 
very beautiful, but most superior and excellent woman. 
That passion for fame which the sight of the tomb of Michael 
Angelo had first inspired him with, she continued to cherish 
and direct ; and to her, Italy and the world owe much of 
whatever glory and spirit of freedom Alfieri has left in his 
writings. 

In all this, who does not see the great resemblance be- 
tween the Italian and the English poet ? But it did not 
end here. Alfieri, like Lord Byron, though the zealous 
companion of liberalism, was prouder of his birth than of 
his genius, — and as he has been exactly described — " was 
an abstraction of pure isolated aristocracy." He denounced 
kings because he hated all tyrants ; but he abhorred the 
French Revolution, because it was entirely democratic. He 
proclaimed the law of liberty, but his indomitable pride 
made him hold himself aloof from its plebeian labourers. 
He was proud to show the nobles that he could win honours 
beyond his hereditary ones ; but the order of patrician rank 
was still more flattering to him than even the " Order of 
Homer," which he instituted, and in which he enrolled 
himself a member. Finally, Alfieri was proud of his abilities 
as a swimmer ; and so similar were their habits in this re- 
spect, that Moore in his life of Byron has actually stated of 
him what Alfieri states of himself — that in Italy, during 
the summer, it was one of his grand pleasures to resort to 
a solitary spot on the coast, and after bathing in the sea, 
throw himself at the foot of a rock, and lie for hours look- 
ing into the sky, indulging in the most delicious reveries. — 
See Alfieri' s Autobiography , and Byron's Life and Works, 
vol. viii. p. 77. 

Old people are yet living who recollect the noise made by 
the affair of the Count Alfieri and Lady Ligonier. A friend 
of mine informs me that near Warrington is a humble farm- 
house where the Count lodged for some time when in that 

35 



410 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

neighbourhood, to be near Lady Ligonier, and that the old 
man will talk by the hour of Maester Alfieri. And in this 
retired spot, where I now reside — having on one hand 
Esher-Place, where Wolsey passed his first months of dis- 
grace ; on the other Claremont, where the Princess Charlotte 
died; on a third, the house of Lilly the astrologer, and 
where Paine wrote a part, if not the whole of his Rights of 
Man ; and on the fourth, the parsonage where Gibbon in his 
youth was domiciled with Philip Francis, the translator of 
Horace — almost every object seems to stand as it stood 
when Alfieri played his wild vagaries. The Griffin Inn at 
Kingston, from which he took a post-chaise, and proceeded 
to Cobham, disguised in "an old blue great-coat and a round 
post-boy's hat, but having under his old great-coat a very 
handsome coat, and particularly smart about his legs and 
feet, having clean white silk stockings, and neat shoes and 
buckles on ;" the Tartar public-house near Cobham, where 
he left his chaise, and took across the foot-road towards 
Church-Cobham ; the little garden-gate at Cobham Park, 
where Lady Ligonier waited for him; the George Inn at 
Cobham, where Lady Ligonier went, and getting pen and 
paper, wrote the letter to the Count, beginning — " Mi 
Lord sait tout;" and bidding him avoid him, and with 
which she sent off a messenger on horseback to London ; all 
appear at this day just as described then, and remind us of 
Alfieri at an age when he seemed likely to win the reputation 
of a most profligate rake, but as little likely to become the 
great tragic poet and father of an Italian regeneration, as to 
become Pope. Yet, let none despair of reclaiming the most 
erring — let none despair of themselves ; this ill-educated, 
corrupted, wilful, and reckless young man — struck by the 
contemplation of the tomb of Michael Angelo — made to 
pause a moment, and feel how noble is the life, how glorious 
is the memory of the intellectually great, and how vile and 
worthless his own career — burst the fetters of guilty habit, 
ay, though it were with tears and howls of agony, and not 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 411 

without cutting his hair from his head, and binding himself 
with a chord to his chair, wearing his mantle that it might 
not be seen — and now, his tomb, carved by the hand of 
Canova, his friend, stands beneath the splendid dome of 
Santa Croce in Florence, with that of Michael Angelo, 
before which he had groaned in shame, and those of Galileo 
and of Machiavelli.* 

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 
Even in itself an immortality, 
Though there were nothing save the past and this, 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos: — here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, 
The starry Galileo with his woes; 
Here Machiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose. 

These are four minds, which, like the elements, 
Might furnish forth creation : — Italy ! 
Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, 
And hath denied, to every other sky, 
Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity, 
Which gilds it with revivifying ray; 
Such as the great of old, Canova is to-day. 

Alfieri visited England in his youth, and in pursuit of 
pleasure. Jean Jaques Rousseau came hither in age, and 
driven by necessity. The man who, risen from the humble 
station of a clock-maker to the first rank of literary distinc- 
tion, to be the associate of princes, to alarm kings, popes, 
and stern presbyters, and to scatter the seeds of change 
wide through the ancient soil of society, was now haunted 

* Exactly twenty years after these events Alfieri, now become famous, 
had the chance to meet with Lady Ligonier, just as he was embarking 
after a third visit to England, and had the satisfaction to find that she had 
shrunk from fashionable life, married an untitled person, and expressed 
herself as perfectly happy. 



412 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

with a fatal frenzy, which alienated his friends, and pur- 
sued him with imaginary foes and terrors. No character 
was ever more justly and perfectly drawn than that of 
Rousseau by Lord Byron. 



One, whose dust was once all fire, 



A native of the land where I respire 
The clear air for a while — a passing guest, 
Where he became a being, — whose desire 
Was to be glorious ; 'twas a foolish quest, 
The which to gain and keep he sacrificed all rest. 

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, 
The apostle of affliction, he who threw 
Enchantment over passion, and from wq 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew 
The breath which made him wretched ; yet he knew 
How to make madness beautiful, and cast 
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past 
The eyes which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast. 

His love was passion's essence — as a tree 
On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame 
Kindled he w 7 as, and blasted ; for to be 
Thus, and enamoured were in him the same. 
But his was not the love of living dame, 
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, 
But of ideal beauty, which became 
In him existence, and o'erflowing teems 
Along his burning page, distempered though it seems. 

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this 
Invested her with all that's wild and sweet ; 
This hallowed too, the memorable kiss 
Which every morn his feeble lip would greet, 
From hers, who but with friendship his would meet ; 
But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast, 
Flashed the thrilled spirit's love-devouring heat ; 
In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest 
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possessed. 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 413 

His life was one long war with self-sought foes, 
Or friends by him self-banished ; for his mind 
Had grown suspicion's sanctuary, and chose, 
For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind, 
'Gainst whom he raged with fury strong and blind. 
But he was phrensied — wherefore who may know 1 
Since cause might be which skill could never find ; 
But he was phrensied by disease, or wo, 
To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show. 

For then he was inspired, and from him came, 
As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore, 
Those oracles which set the world in flame, 
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more : 
Did he not this for France 1 which lay before 
Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years? 
Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore, 
Till by the voice of him and his compeers 
Roused up to too much wrath, which follows o'ergrown fears'? 

They made themselves a fearful monument ! 
The wreck of old opinions — things which grew, 
Breathed from the birth of time: the veil they rent, 
And what behind it lay all earth shall view. 
But good with ill they also overthrew, 
Leaving but ruins wherewith to rebuild 
Upon the same foundation, and renew 
Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled, 
As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed. 

Childe Harold, Canto iii. 166-9. 

We need not trace the history of this wonderful but un- 
happy man ; it is embodied in these stanzas. The author 
of the Eloise, the Social Contract, the Emilius, and of many 
other fervent compositions which had already filled the 
civilized world with their fame, and were destined to work 
out mighty consequences, when- he himself was laid in the 
dust, had now in that " worst pitch of phrensy which wears 
a reasoning show,"* scattered from him nearly all his 

' Spite of all Rousseau's errors and eccentricities, he was the first to 
see the necessity of a total change in the principle and practice of popular 

35* 



414 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

friends ; and surely no man ever found so many or so de- 
voted. Palaces were opened, houses built for him, his tastes 
consulted, solitudes created for his study, and society se- 
lected for his honour and refreshment ; but the demon of 
suspicion always attended him • and poisoned everything 
around — his food, his drink, his vision, and the very flowers 
beneath his feet. Admiring men and loving women were re- 
pulsed as the most base conspirators against his peace and 
honour. Madame D'Epinay, the Countess D'Houdetot, 
D'Alembert, Grimm, Diderot, Voltaire, all were flung from 
him as wretches filled with the most horrible and treacherous 
designs. He fled from the house of the Prince of Conti, and 
successively sought a spot of peace and security in vain in 
France, Switzerland, and Prussia, he imagined that England 
alone could afford him an asylum. He believed that all the 
kings and priests of the continent of Europe were leagued 
to destroy him, and all the literary men to betray him into 
their hands. There was yet one free country, — England, 
and one honest philosopher, — David Hume, which he deem- 
ed were happily left him, and in their arms he determined 
to seek repose. David Hume soon assured him of his most 
cordial assistance, and announced to him that he had a friend, 
Mr. Davenport, a gentleman of Staffordshire, whose family 
seat at Wotton would furnish that profound retreat from 
the world and his persecutors which he so ardently de- 
sired ; and that this was most heartily placed at his service. 
The heart of Rousseau kindled at the prospect. David 
Hume was ready to attend him from Paris to London, 
and consign him to the generous care of his friend, Mr. 
Davenport, who would conduct him to Wotton ; for Rous- 
seau could speak scarcely a syllable of English. Accordingly, 

education, and notwithstanding the impracticability of his own theory, 
from his original ideas sprung the views and experiments of Pestalozzi, 
Fellenberg, and others, which are perhaps destined, beyond all other 
means, really to civilize and christianize the multitudes of Europe, and 
thence of the world. 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 415 

as the newspapers of the times record, on" Jan. 13th, 1766, 
the celebrated Jean Jaques Rousseau arrived in London ; 
and he was soon afterwards set safely down at Wotton." 

Here, if peace and security were what he really needed, 
he might have found them, if they were to be found on earth. 
In the heart of free England who should dare to molest him ? 
In this sylvan solitude, far from the great towns and beaten 
tracks of travel, who, indeed, should find him ? And, for 
a time, he appeared to have reached the long-sought bourne 
of his rest. All things seemed to conspire to his satisfac- 
tion. He declared that he had discovered the spot he 
sought, and that there he would live and die. His devoted 
companion of many years, Theresa le Vasseur, had joined 
him ; his host, a gentleman of enlightened mind and gener- 
ous disposition, who, both on account of his own fame, and 
of his friendship for Hume, was desirous to render his abode 
entirely agreeable, was occasionally there with his family, 
and occasionally at his house in town, leaving Wotton then 
to his sole use, with a couple of old tried servants to wait 
on him. To a person like Rousseau, sensitively alive to the 
beauties of nature, the country must have been charming. 
It could not give him, it is true, the climate of France,* nor 
present him with the Alpine sublimities of Switzerland, but 
yet it was lovely. There was a solemn beauty about it. 

* Nor even of the south of England. So far as climate was concerned 
Wotton was ill chosen. The south of England could have furnished him 
with solitudes deep enough and a much more genial atmosphere. I was 
struck with the difference between even Surrey and this elevated region. 
I was there at the latter end of June. The woods were full of blue- 
bells, there were still primroses to be seen, in the garden tulips and 
labernums were in full blossom, all of which had long disappeared in 
Surrey. With us the wild-rose and elder-flower, the signs of confirmed 
summer, were in blow in the hedges ; here not one was to be seen open ; 
but the hawthorn, which had faded a month before in the south, cast its 
fragrance around you, and the foliage everywhere had all the freshness 
and delicacy of spring. 



416 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

Green hills, deep woods, rich views into a champaign coun- 
try, rich meadows scattered with noble trees, and winding 
dells were around him. At hand, also, were the fairyland 
dales of the Peak — Dovedale's picturesque loveliness, and 
the pleasant slopes of Ham and Ashborne. For his favourite 
pursuit of botany he was in a very paradise. A greater 
variety of vegetable habitats, and therefore of plants and 
flowers, could scarcely be met with. A number of old and 
highly respectable families were scattered through the neigh- 
bourhood, and, had he desired to cultivate their acquaint- 
ance, it is clear that he might have found himself in the 
midst of a most select and delightful society. He said at 
that time in his letters : — " The place in which I reside is 
much to my liking. The master of the house is a very 
worthy man, in whose favour, the three weeks' residence 
he has made here, with his family, have cemented the 
friendship his good services had made me conceive for him. 
He does everything in his power to make his house agree- 
able to me. Had I again to fix my place of abode, this 
is the only habitation I could make choice of in England." 
He tells us that " all the gentlemen of the environs, all 
the ministers of the neighbouring parishes, have the good- 
ness to show me civilities of which I am extremely sensible, 
as this is the general disposition of the country. Even the 
common people, notwithstanding my dress, forget, in my 
favour, their usual rudeness to strangers. Madame de Luze 
will tell you what the country is. In short, I should find 
in it that which would make me forget any other, were it 
nearer the sun and my friends." He adds, in June, that he 
had had visiters from London, both ladies and gentlemen, 
who were witnesses of his happiness, and that, in fact, he 
had never lived more at his ease, nor more uninterruptedly 
followed his inclinations from morning till night. At a short 
distance from him stood Calwich Abbey, the beautiful resi- 
dence of Mr. Granville. This gentleman had shown him 
the most hospitable attentions, and for him he appeared to 



VISIT TO WOTTOST HALL. 417 

acquire a strong regard. Mr. Granville had two sisters, 
the elder of whom was the celebrated Mrs. Delany, for 
many years the intimate friend of George III. and Queen 
Charlotte. She was a lady of fine literary taste and the 
most amiable disposition, as any one will believe who has 
seen the excellent portrait of her by Opie, at Hampton 
Court. This lady, after the age of seventy-five, made her 
celebrated Hortus Siccus, now in the possession of her niece 
Mrs. Waddington, the whole amounting to ten immense 
folios, each containing one hundred floral plants, repre- 
senting in cut paper of infinitely various dyes, the finest 
flowers of our own and every other climate, from the best 
specimens that the field, the garden, the green-house, and 
the conservatory could furnish ; and with a fidelity and 
vividness of colouring, says Anna Seward, who saw the 
volumes at Dr. Parr's, which shame the needle and the 
pencil ; the moss, the films, the farina, every minutest part, 
being represented with matchless delicacy.* This lady — the 

* Always a fine painter, and not ignorant of chemistry, she herself 
dyed her papers from whence the new creation arose. Of this astonish- 
ing work Dr. Darwin has given a most erroneous description in his 
splendid poem. He ought not to have taken such a liberty. It repre- 
sents Mrs. Delany as a mere artificial flower-maker, using wires, and 
wax, and moss, etc. ; though writing-paper was her sole material — her 
scissors her only implement. The former, previously coloured by her- 
self, in complete shades of every tint, was never retouched by the pencil 
after the flower was cut out ; nor did she ever make a drawing : but, as 
the specimen lay before her, she cut from the eye. The easy flowing 
grace of the stalks, the happiness with which the flower or flowers, their 
leaves and buds, are disposed upon those stalks, is exquisite; while the 
degree of real relief which they possess, besides that which arises from 
the skilful deception produced by light and shade, has a richness and 
natural effect, which the finest pencil cannot hope to attain. What a 
lesson of exertion does the invention and completion of such a work, 
after seventy-five, give to that hopeless languor which people are so 
prone to indulge in the decline of life? — Anna Seward's Letters, vol. 
iii., p. 195-6. 

What a lesson, we may add, not to the old, but to thousands of the 



418 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

intimate friend of Swift, Horace Walpole, Dr. Burney, 
Anna Seward, and the Duchess of Portland ; her sister, 
Mrs. Dewes ; the Dewes family altogether, and the Poots 
of Ham, their relatives, were most disposed to cultivate the 
friendship of Rousseau. 

Mr. Fitzherbert, I suppose of Norbury, the father-in-law 
of the late celebrated Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the Earl of Har- 
court, are named amongst his correspondents and friends. 
The Duchess of Portland, the daughter of the Duke of De- 
vonshire, and therefore intimately connected with that part 
of the country, as well as being the intimate friend of Mrs. 
Delany, was then a young woman ; in fact, just married. 
She was introduced to him by Mr. Granville, and, besides 
that, both herself and the duke were most amiable and in- 
teresting people ; she was an enthusiastic botanist, and, as 
was certain, won wonderfully on Rousseau. She ranged 
the rocks and dales of the Peak with him, and he speaks of 
her in his letters as climbing crags in the pursuit of plants, 
which would have struck his French acquaintance, and es- 
pecially the ladies, with astonishment. Mr. Davenport, it 
may be discovered from Jean Jaques' letters, was always 
on the look out to contribute to his comfort and amusement. 
He was now sending him substantial luxuries, such as tea 
and other things from town ; now books and news ; now 
coming down expressly to see him, and that all was 
as he wished it about him. To crown all, without any 
solicitation on his part, but through means which could be 
no mystery when he had such friends at court as Mrs. 
Delany, the Duke and Duchess of Portland, and Mr. Daven- 
port, the friend of General Conway, secretary of state, the 
king granted him a pension of one hundred pounds a year. 

rich and luxurious young of this age ! If a lady past seventy-five could 
execute as her amusement so splendid and extensive a work of taste, what 
may not the young of the present day perform, with all their leisure and 
their accomplishments, for the adornment of existence, or the benefit of 
their fellow-creatures 1 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 41 9 

Here were ample materials for happiness, if happiness 
was possible to him ; but his mind, too securely the prey 
of melancholy and suspicion, soon put to flight his tem- 
porary contentment. We find him writing, that he hears 
with astonishment of the manner in which they treat him 
in London ; that it would be far better to refuse the unfor- 
tunate an asylum, than to receive and insult them ; that he 
knows that everything that passes with respect to him is 
not natural ; that a whole nation does not change from 
white to black in a moment without a cause, and that this 
secret cause is the more dangerous as it is less apprehended, 
and so on. His phrenzied and restless mind instantly con- 
jured up the most disgraceful conspiracy against him to 
drive him from the nation ; and, as was always the case, on 
those who had been his most zealous friends fell the weight 
of his resentment. David Hume was charged by him with 
being at the bottom of the whole, and Voltaire with blow- 
ing the flame by a published letter. Hume, of course, 
highly indignant, repelled the charge, called for an expla- 
nation, and the whole affair spread through the newspa- 
pers, and may there be read, as well as Hume's statement 
in his works. But it was in vain to expostulate with a 
madman ; and to that character Rousseau had had a good 
claim, more or less, for many years. The mischief was, that 
his friends, as he successively quarrelled with them, did not 
see this, but looked upon him as sane, but irritable and un- 
generous. His mind however was now so confirmedly 
under the influence of its malady, that the possibility of his 
having another moment's rest at Wotton was gone ; he 
therefore suddenly took his departure, and we find him ad- 
dressing a letter from Calais in May, 1767; having been 
about a year and four months at Wotton.* 

* The alleged cause of his sudden flight from Wotton is in complete 
keeping with his suspicious temperament. The tradition is that Theresa 
either grown suspicious herself, or, as has been supposed, desirous to get 
back to France, told Rousseau one day that she had, unobserved, watched 



420 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

The remainder of his life was of the same tissue ; his fever- 
ish mind, always seeking for that spot of repose which he 
was not destined to find till he found his grave. His let- 
ters, to the very close of his existence, at Ermonville, in 
17 r ,* re full of speculations on finding that ardently de- 

r i terra incognita. Wherever he pitched, filled with hope 
for the " moment, it was still flitting before him. Now it 
was Amiens, then successively Fleury, the country-house 
of Mirabeau ; Trie le Chateau, the house of the Prince of 
Conti ; Bourgoin : America sometimes loomed large and 
invitingly in his imagination, but too distant ; then the isles 
of the Grecian Archipelago, and particularly Cyprus, " or 
some corner of Greece, no matter where, with a soil fertile 
in plants, a fine climate, and no Christian charity to inter- 
fere with him." He even made application to the English 
government to grant him protection to live and botanize in 
the Isles of Greece. Receiving no assurance on this head, 
his mind immediately reverted again to England and Wot- 
ton, — he would go and end his days there. Savoy, for 
which he actually procured a passport, the castle of La- 
vagnac, Minorca, Monquin, and other places, till the day of 
his death, flitted alluringly through his unreposable mind. 

Last June, being in Staffordshire, I determined to visit 
Wotton. 1 was curious to see the haunts of Rousseau ; to 
see if any relics of him remained there yet, which had been 
handed down in the family which is still in possession of 
the estate, respecting him, and what was the tradition of 
the country-people of him ; for it was certain that a fo- 
reigner coming into that secluded place, and living retiredly 
at the Hall, having with him only a lady who bore a name 

the cook putting something into his soup, which she feared was with de- 
sign to poison him. The very idea of such a thing was enough for his 
ilffitable mind. He rushed out of the house, sent off Theresa with all 
speed to Ashborne for a chaise, and continuing to walk about in the open 
air till she returned with it, he refused to enter the house again, but the 
moment his luggage was ready, posted off with indignant velocity. 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 421 

different to his own, and therefore could not be supposed to 
be either wife or sister, must have amazingly excited their 
curiosity, and left a vivid impression on their minds. No- 
thing is more curious than the shape which such a thing 
often takes in the mind of the populace, and espec-i- 1 -r a 
simple and thoroughly rustic populace, living as the ' 
lagers of Wotton did, cut off almost from the rest of uie 
world. The circumstances too of Rousseau's al. le here 
must have been the more piquantly stimulant to their cu- 
riosity from his sudden appearance there, and his sudden 
departure, from his wearing his Armenian dress, a furred 
cap, and caftan, or long striped robe with a belt. Besides 
this, his ignorance of English would cut off communication, 
and make him more mysterious in their eyes. He says 
himself that he knew only about thirty English words be- 
fore he came to England, and that they, owing to the bar- 
barous gibberish of the place, the Staffordshire dialect, had 
been of no use to him ; and that Theresa knew literally not 
a word when she arrived. 

Wotton lies at the feet of the Weaver hills, about six 
miles from Ashborne, and that, or something more, from 
Cheadle. From the latter place I walked through a bold, 
wild country to it. My idea was that the retreat of Rous- 
seau had been at Wotton Lodge, a mile nearer on my way 
than Wotton Hall. Here I arrived, and found the lodge ; 
a fine old Elizabethan house, situated in as solemnly strik- 
ing a solitude as one can well conceive. It stood up aloft, 
on a natural terrace overlooking a deep winding glen, and 
surrounded by sloping uplands, deep masses of wood, and 
the green heights of Weaver, in a situation of solitary 
beauty which extremely delighted me. Not a person was 
visible throughout the profoundly silent scene, scarcely a 
house was within view. I ascended to the front of the 
lodge, and stood in admiration of its aspect. Its tall square 
bulk of dark-gray stone, with its turreted front, full of large 
square mullioned windows ; its paved court, and ample 

36 



422 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

flight of steps ascending to its porched door ; its old garden, 
with terraces and pleached hedges on the south slope below 
it, and deep again below that, dark ponds visible amongst 
the wild growth of trees. The house stood, without a 
smoke, without a sign of life, or movement about it, in the 
broad sunshine of noon. I advanced and rung the bell in 
the porch, but no one answered it. It was, for all the 
world, like a hall of old romance laid under an enchanted 
spell. I rung again, but all was silent. I descended the 
flight of steps, and paced the gray pavement of the court, 
and was about to withdraw, when an old woman opened a 
casement in the highest story, and said, in a slow, dreamy 
voice, ". I am coming down." 

I found that this old dame was the sole inhabitant. The 
house was only partially furnished, and the proprietor abroad. 
There were a few paintings, and amongst them an old sea- 
captain, the former possessor of the place, who, she said, 
was lost at sea, and the estate gone into another line. Bat 
no such a man as Rousseau, she protested, had ever been 
there ; nor had it been the property of the Davenports. I 
was, therefore, satisfied that his retreat was Wotton Hall, 
and thither I walked. It too is a sufficiently solitary lo- 
cality, though it has the village of Wotton a little above it, 
and that of Ellaston about half a mile below. It stands 
like the Lodge, on a fine natural terrace overlooking a deep 
glen surrounded with wood, and with here and there huge 
masses of dark-red rocks showing themselves in its sides. 
It is a glade* which would have delighted Poussin or Claude, 
with masses of oak trees overhanging its rocky sides, and 
long lines of honeysuckle and ivy dangling down them, and 
its upper end filled with wood, in a manner to please even 
Salvator. At some little distance north of the house and 
village swells up the green bulk of Weaver, giving wide 
prospect on one hand over the country, with the distant 
town of Uttoxeter seen smoking in the plain, the church 
towers of Cheadle and Ashborne, Alton Abbey, the seat of 



VTSIT TO WOTTON HALL. 423 

the Earl of Shrewsbury not far off, and, it is said, on clear 
days the spire of Lichfield, and the Shropshire hills. Be 
that as it may, on the other hand, northward, are discerned 
the blue and misty tops of the Peak hills. When I mounted 
on the riclge of the Weaver, and saw around this vast, but 
silent expanse, and in the nearer scene only moorland 
wastes, long lines of stone walls, two or three ancient cairns, 
and a few grazing cattle ; and perceived as the only sounds, 
the bleat of a sheep, or the hoarse cry of the carrion crow, 
the only cheerful note being that of the lark overhead, I 
could not help feeling, for 

Quiet to quick bosom is a hell — 

that the very recurring depth of this solitude, as Rousseau 
pursued his botanical rambles, was enough to rouse in his 
distempered fancy all the phantasms of this foes and machina- 
tions. 

I found the family of Mr. Bromley from home, and the house 
undergoing alteration and enlargement. The steward in- 
formed me that there was nothing remaining which belonged 
to Rousseau, and that the rooms usually occupied by him 
were now destroyed in a great measure, to make way for the 
entrance hall. A grotto near the house is still remaining 
which goes by his name, and where he is said to have spent 
much time. 

But on inquiry after the remembrance of him in the vil- 
lage, I was more successful. I asked the first man I en- 
countered, whether he had heard of a Frenchman ever 
having lived at the Hall ? " A Frenchmon ? Ay, to be 
sure ! yo meanen owd Boss HalV That is the man, I re- 
plied ; seeing how the simple people had converted his name 
into so odd a one. In their dialect, as in the Scotch, hall is 
pronounced ha' — Rousseau, would thus be, in their fathers' 
mouths, Ross Ha' ; but the present generation, something 
educated, would endeavour to give ha' the full sound to a 
stranger, which in their dialect it represents, and ha' would 



424 VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 

become hall. However I found Rousseau here known to 
all the villagers as Ross Hall, except to one or two, who 
called him Dross Hall ; having corrupted the name into this 
by the prefix of old, or owd, which they apply to almost 
everybody and everything. Owd Ross Hall thus became 
owd Dross Hall ; the sound of the d in owd, being carried 
on to Ross. 

"And when," I asked, "did this gentleman live here?" 
"0," said the man, "before my time; but there are owd people 
in the village who were children then, and they remembern 
him. He war mighty curious in yarbs,* and ah've heered 
see, war skilled to cure welly ony disease wi' em. Owd 
James Robinson a'th top o'th town, and Farmer Burton 
here, and owd Missis Saut,t of Ellaston, they know'd him, 
an' can tell ya au about him." I walked up and found 
this James Robinson, a blithe old fellow of about ninety. 
When I asked if he knew the Frenchman who once lived 
at the Hall, he replied, " What, owd Ross Hall ? Ay, 
know him did I, well enough. Ah've seen him monny an' 
monny a time, every dee welly, coming and going in's 
comical cap an' ploddyj gown, a'gethering his yarbs." I 
asked him if he ever had any talk with him. " No, he could 
na speak no English, nubbut a wod or two." " And was 
there anybody here with him ?" " Yes, there war a lady 
— they cawd her Madam Zell, but whether how war his 
wife or not ah dunna know. Folks said how warna." 

But this old man, as well as Farmer Burton and Mrs. 
Salt, described him as walking out almost every day, and 
coming back with great handfuls of plants. They described 
him, exactly as he describes himself, in his Armenian dress, 
only they called his striped caftan a plaid. Mademoiselle 
le Vasseur, they all called Madam Zell ; and Mrs. Salt said 
how much afraid she and her brother, children of about ten 
years old, used to be when they met him in the lanes on 

* Herbs. t Salt. \ Plaid. 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 425 

their way to school. His long gown and belt, and his black 
velvet cap with its gold tassel and pendent top, made him 
a most awful figure to them, especially as they used to see 
him poring on the park wall for moss, or growing in some 
lonely nook after plants. As he could not address them in 
English to dissipate their fears, they used to run off, if 
possible, at the very first glimpse of the terrible outlandish 
man. 

They all agreed in saying that both Ross Hall and Madam 
Zell were very good folks, — very kind to the poor; and 
one of them mentioned a fact which, as the villagers actually 
knew nothing of Rousseau's history, is very characteristic. 
The old man, who used to remain at the house during the 
absence of the family in town, one day beat his wife, the 
housekeeper; and Madam Zell, on some of the villagers 
flocking in at the outcry, in a state of great excitement, said 
in her few words of English to some young women, — 
" Never marry ! never marry ! You see ! you see !" 

Old Farmer Burton said " it was thought he was some 
king who had been driven from his dominions." 

The fact that a gentleman was inquiring about old Ross 
Hall, roused the wonder of the whole village. The people 
turned out in groups from the top of the hamlet to the 
bottom, and when they saw the steward proceeding with 
me towards the Hall, their curiosity became intense. They 
could not have an idea that the mere gratification of my 
curiosity had led me there ; there must, they thought, be 
something of high moment in agitation. Several of them 
came with very serious faces, and asked, " What it was 
about? whether government was making inquiry about 
Ross Hall ? or whether some property was consarned ?" 

I learned that several caps and a handsome pipe, belong- 
ing to Rousseau, had been in the village till recently, and 
they believed Farmer Gallimore had a cap and pipe now 
It was droll to see the caution of Farmer Gallimore when I 
went and asked about them. "What is it about?" he 

36* 



426 YISIT T0 WOTTON HALL. 

asked, " What's your object, sir ?" « 0, merely curiosity !" 
He looked incredulous, shaking his head and smiling ; and 
nothing could be got out of him but, " It's an old affair, sir ; 
it's quite an old affair now." His wife, however, beckoned 
me into the next room, and said she should be obliged if I 
would tell her why it was that so many people came inquir- 
ing about Ross Hall ? I told her it was because he had 
been a great writer. The woman not having so enormous 
a bump of caution as her husband, then told me that there 
had been a black velvet cap, with gold tassels, in their 
house till a short time ago, as well as a pipe ; but the cap 
being brought down from the shelf on which it used to lie, 
to show it to some gentlemen who had called to see it, it 
was soon afterwards missed, and they supposed that some 
workmen who were in the house when the gentlemen saw 
it, had stolen it. The pipe also was gone. She added, that 
a farmer at some distance, whose father was a servant at 
the Hall at that time, had a cap which Ross Hall gave him. 
To this farmer I proceeded, and there I saw it. It was of 
grayish drab woollen stuff, with silver braid and tassel. It 
had lain in a drawer of the kitchen dresser, however, till it 
was considerably moth-eaten. I offered to purchase it, but 
the man said, " Nay, I canna part wi' it, becos it's an owd 
keepsake o' my feyther's." 

Such is the curious impression which Rousseau has left 
at Wotton ; and, as Lord Byron said of himself, on hearing 
of some of the opinions of the Italians regarding him,— 
" Such is fame !" I know not whether there be any truth 
in the story, or on what authority it is given, that Dr. Dar- 
win was very anxious to be introduced to Rousseau here, 
and that he would not see him, whereupon Darwin fixed 
himself in his way as he issued forth on one of his botanical 
excursions, intently gazing on a plant ; on which Rousseau 
came up to him and asked, " Etes-vous un botanist, Mon- 
sieur ?" to which replying in the affirmative, they walked 
on together, and botanized the whole day to their great 



VISIT TO WOTTON HALL. 427 

mutual pleasure ; but on parting at eve, Rousseau begged 
to -know the name of his companion, and on hearing it, ex- 
claimed, " Ha ! a concerted plan !" and never would see 
him again. 

It is the common report that Dovedale was his favourite 
resort, and that there he sowed the seeds of various plants 
amongst the rocks, of which the mezereons there yet to be 
seen, are part of the results. The most amusing thing, 
however, is the awful character which his strange dress, 
his taciturnity, and his solitary wanderings on the moor- 
lands and the hills gave him. The simple people seem 
almost to imagine that he held communication with super- 
natural beings. One man gravely said "He had heard that 
he used to think nothing of going over Weaver when the 
feeris* were out daunting a nights ; and to my thinking," 
he added, " feeries can be nowt but lost sperrits." 

I have since learned from the Rev. Walter Davenport 
Bromley, the present worthy proprietor of Wotton, that no 
memorial of Rousseau remains at the Hall, and that little is 
known of his acts or habits while there, more than has been 
made public ; for his father, having been educated on Rous- 
seau's system, and feeling the deficiencies of it, never liked 
to hear him mentioned. Mr. Granville, of Calwich, has, 
however, some of his letters, chiefly filled with complaints 
of the climate, and probably the originals of those already 
published. 

* Faeries. 



SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 

Much has been said and written about the camp-meetings 
of America and England, but the sober Scotch have shown 
by the recent Revivals, as they are called amongst them, 
that the same species of religious excitement can agitate 
them ; and, indeed, they have had, from the earliest days of 
the Reformation, scenes of most picturesque religious exhi- 
bition amongst them, — of which, however, little is known 
in England. Their annual administration of the sacrament, 
which in the Highlands often occurs in the open air, is a 
most singular and novel sight. Logan of Leith, better 
known to English readers as Logan the poet, in his sermons, 
describes in detail the ceremony. He tells us that "the 
people are prepared by their ministers in their respective 
parishes for this great occasion, with much seriousness, and 
that it generally occupies four days, including the Sunday 
fixed for this solemnity." On the Thursday and Saturday 
before it, and on the Monday after it, there is public 
worship, and sermons are preached upon subjects suitable 
to the occasion. The Thursday is particularly set apart for 
solemn fasting, and no labour is that day permitted in the 
parish. The greater part of persons of all ranks in the 
parish, who have arrived at the years of discretion, join in 
celebrating this ordinance, which, partly from this cause, 
and partly from its taking place but once or twice a year, 
is performed in a manner that is very solemn and devout. 

" The service begins with the singing of a psalm, which 
the minister reads out immediately on ascending the pulpit. 
The choice of the psalms is in all cases at the minister's discre- 
tion ; and, to give the sacrament service more completely, some 
portions, which are often sung on such occasions, are inserted 
here in their places. The music is entirely vocal. In a few 
congregations there is music in parts, but in general the whole 



SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KELMORAC. 439 

congregation sing in unison. The psalms tunesare set to slow 
time ; the melody is simple, grave, and often very affecting." 

John Wesley, on his religious journeys into Scotland, was 
surprised to find that on the fast-day the people did not fast 
at all, but regularly eat their three meals. He also, in his 
Journal of the date of Sunday the 17th, 1764, gives us 
this pretty accurate description of the ceremony, as cele- 
brated in the West Kirk in Edinburgh. 

" After the usual morning service, the minister enumer- 
ated several sorts of sinners whom he forbade to approach. 
Two long tables were set on the sides of one aisle, covered 
with table-cloths. On each side of them a bench was placed 
for the people. Each table held four or five and thirty. 
Three ministers sate at the top, behind a cross table ; one of 
whom made a long exhortation, closed with the words of 
our Lord, and then, breaking the bread, gave it to him who 
sate on each side of him. A piece of bread was then given 
to him who sate first on each side of the four benches. He 
broke off a little piece and gave the bread to the next. So 
it went on, the deacons giving more when wanted. A cup 
was then given to the first person on each bench, and so by 
one to another. The minister continued his exhortation all 
the time they were receiving. Then four verses of the 
twenty-second psalm were sung, while new persons sate 
down at the tables. A second minister then prayed, conse- 
crated, and exhorted. I was informed the service usually 
lasted till five in the evening. How much more simple, as 
well as more solemn," adds worthy John Wesley, " is the 
service of the Church of England." Solemn enough I think 
most English people, however, would consider it, and not a 
little impressive ; but what English congregation could en- 
dure a service of four days, continuing each day from ten 
in the morning to five in the evening ? And who would 
identify this serious Ceremony with the Holy-Fair of Burns ? 
And yet it is no other. But, whatever John Wesley might 
think of the ceremony as seen in Edinburgh, or however it 



430 SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 

might be enacted in the west of Scotland, and have pre- 
sented itself to the eyes of the random and waggish Robin 
Burns, nothing can be more striking, serious, and picturesque, 
than the same ceremony seen in the Highlands, in the open 
air, at the feet of the wild mountains, and amid a simple 
and uncorrupted population. It is there celebrated mostly 
in the finest season of their year, in the interval between 
the hay and corn harvests, as a time of the most general 
leisure during the summer. Two or three ministers of ad- 
joining parishes commonly unite to assist each other, and 
administer the sacrament in each successively, which thus 
runs in the whole through as many weeks. 

As Logan states, in each parish the occasion occupies four 
days, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We 
thought ourselves fortunate, in August, 1836, that we hap- 
pened to fall in with the celebration of this annual ordinance 
in the Highlands. We were at Beaulev, about a dozen miles 
west of Inverness, on a Sunday morning, and were inquiring 
of the landlady of our excellent inn how far it was to the 
celebrated falls of Kilmorac. " !" said she, " it is a bare 
two miles, and you will just be there in the nick of time to 
see the sacrament administered to the Gaelic population in 
the open air. The English congregation will receive it in 
the kirk." This was brave news, and away we posted. 
It was a delicious morning. One of those clear, warm, yet 
not oppressive days, that August often presents us. The 
sky over head was studded with light and loftly little masses 
of what the German meteorologists so expressively call 
siachen clouds, that appear on the summer's morning amid 
the sunny azure in small lumps all round the horizon, and 
gradually grow, and stack, and pile themselves up into snowy 
mountains, and regions of cloud-land most lustrous and beau- 
tiful. A gentle breeze went puffing and frolicking amongst 
the hedge-rows, wafting to us deliciously the odour of the 
sweetbriar, which abounds there ; the level rich fields are full 
of corn already " white unto the harvest ;" and from all 



SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 43 1 

quarters we saw the people streaming along the highways 
and the foot-paths towards the hills that lay westward. 
The roads were clad frae side to side 
Wi' monie a wearie body, 

In droves that day. 

Not, however, exactly as Burns describes the folk of Ay reshire: 
Here farmers gash in rid in graith 

Gaed hoddin by their cotters ; 
There swankies young, in braw braid-claith, 

Are springin o'er the gutters. 
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang, 

In silks an' scarlet glitter; 
Wi' sweet milk-cheese, in monie a whang, 
An' f'arls bak'd wi' butter 

Fu crump that day. 
Most here were on foot ; none were barefooted ; on the 
week days we saw scarcely a woman with shoes or stock- 
ings on, but to-day none were without. With the exception 
that hardly one had a bonnet on, the young women were 
not much to be distinguished from those of our smartest 
towns. They all had their hair neatly braided, and adorned 
with a tall comb of tortoise-shell. Many of them had silk 
gowns, and handsome worked muslin collars ; and others 
were dressed in white. Every one carried on her arm a 
shawl, often of tartan, ready in case of rain to throw over 
her head. The married women wore no bonnets, but had 
caps supported by a sort of inner frame of stiff calico ; and 
smart coloured ribbons, often pink, and as often gay tartan, 
showing through the cap. The old women, again, had 
large mob-caps. In this style they were moving towards 
the place of meeting ; many of them came thus unbonneted 
perhaps from a distance of seven or eight miles, for some of 
these Highland parishes are of vast extent. As we drew 
nearer Kilmorac, the numbers were seen gathering from all 
quarters, men and women, from the open plain, up the glens, 
and down from the mountains. Presently we came in 
view of the assembled multitude, and a most novel and 
striking scene it was. 



432 SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 

The situation is one of great beauty ; perhaps a finer for 
such an occasion could not be found. The river which, 
with its tributary streams, has traversed from its western 
sources in the far lochs of Monar, Moyley, and Affaric, some 
of the most enchanting scenery in the empire, especially in 
Strath Affaric and Strath Glass, here comes rushing on be- 
tween perpendicular cliffs, from which the spectator looks 
down, and sees it at perhaps two hundred feet below him 
foaming through its narrow passage in a similar manner 
to the Strid at Bolton ; and then spreading itself out in a 
wider space, forms a fine salmon leap, and afterwards hur- 
ries merrily on its' way to the Murray Frith. Just where 
the river issues from the cliffs, and overlooking the salmon 
leap, juts out a lofty piece of table-land. That is the bu- 
rial-ground of Kilmorac ; and there, as we approached, we 
beheld upwards of a thousand people collected, conspicu- 
ous in the bright and varied hues of Highland costume. 
The sound of their hymn — a sound wild, pensive and pe- 
culiar, as if it were modulated by the mountain breeze, 
came mingled with the solemn roar of the waters. We 
stood, and for a moment almost imagined we were come 
upon a band of the ancient Covenanters. A more striking 
picture we never saw. They stood aloft, on that elevated 
plateau — yet, high on either hands swelled up the rocky 
hills, crimson with the heather bloom, then in its full glory, 
and scattered with birch-trees ; and below them thundered, 
and leaped, and hurried away, the agitated waters. 

We entered the burial-ground through the dense crowd, 
and seated ourselves on the low wall built on the edge of 
the precipice over the river, so that we had the preacher 
and his audience, and the surrounding hills all before us. 
Nothing but the pencil could convey to an English mind 
how different to anything seen in England was the scene. The 
burial-ground was inclosed on two sides with high walls — 
the wall of the Manse garden running from the high road to 
the precipice in one direction, and the wall which shuts out 



SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 433 

the highway running from the garden to the precipice at 
a right angle in the other — the waving line of the wall on 
the precipice forming the remaining boundary. Beneath a 
spreading tree near the garden wall, stood a sort of movable 
booth of wood, open in front, sufficiently to form a con- 
venient pulpit by a sort of shutter, which being hinged on 
its bottom edge, was let down on the lower half of the 
front, and thus obstructed no part of the preacher's view of 
his people. From this booth the minister was now address- 
ing the congregation, while two other ministers occupied a 
seat in the booth behind him, ready to assist in the progress 
of the offices of the day. If a magnificent position in the 
great temple of nature could have kindled the imagination 
of the preacher, and inspired him with unusual eloquence, 
that surely might have done ; for on his right rose the rocky 
hills beyond the falls, glowing to their very summits with 
the crimson heath, and feathered with the gracefully scat- 
tered birches ; on his left stood his little kirk, and on the 
green knolls above, his manse and a few Highland huts; 
and before him, the rapid waters of the river — the deep 
woods of Beaufort, once the abode of old Simon Frazer, 
Lord Lovat, and still that of his descendants — and far and 
wide a splendid expanse of rich fields, and brown heaths, 
dark pine forest, and blue distant hills. 

The preacher and the place brought forcibly to my mind 
our missionaries, who, on the same day in many a distant 
region, were addressing their savage audiences. The booth 
under the spreading tree — the crowd congregated on the 
grassy foreground, seated on the graves and tombstones, or 
rude benches constructed for the occasion, and on the walls 
all around, many of them concealed from our sight by the 
overhanging trees, their rows of dangling legs only being 
visible ; but above all, the language in which the minister 
was addressing his hearers, which for anything that we un- 
derstood of it might have been Malay or Otaheitan, gave 
the scene a missionary air. The people themselves had 

37 



434 ^SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 

enough of English look and costume to dispel the mo- 
mentary illusion — fair hair, fair complexions, and a great 
portion of English dress. The group, nevertheless, was a 
very motley one. The young damsels, with their bare 
heads, and bright tartan shawls on their arms ; the matrons, 
with their peculiar caps with coloured linings ; the old wo- 
men with large mob-caps ; and sturdy shepherds, with sun- 
burnt features, and their plaids wrapped round them ; and 
gay fellows in full Highland costume, mingled with the 
throng in a more English garb, reminded one at once of the 
prevalence of English rule and influence, and the remains 
of the ancient habits and customs of the Gael. A more 
serious and decorous congregation never was seen. Burns 
would have found no "rows of tittlin jades," nor "batch of 
wabster lads blackguarding' 7 — and as to " Change House," 
there was none. We observed great numbers flock during 
the heat of the day to a beautiful spring in the thicket just by, 
whose margin of shadowy greensward offered a delightful 
place of rest and refreshment, after a walk of probably six 
or eight miles through the hills. Here they drew forth 
their simple cates, and with fresh draughts from the spring 
fortified themselves for the long services of the day. 

Across the burial-ground, in front of the preaching -booth, 
was placed a long table, covered with a clean white table- 
cloth, and furnished with a bench on each side. The main 
part of the congregation sate on other benches on each side 
of the table, while the table itself remained unoccupied. At 
a certain part of the service, though we could not under- 
stand what was said, we could see what Logan thus 
describes exactly, take place — " Upon the giving out of a 
psalm, the minister desires the elders to bring forward the . 
Sacramental Elements, and the communicants to take their 
seats at the communion-table. The elders consist of several 
of the most respectable and exemplary persons of the parish, 
and who are regularly ordained to their office, which has a 
considerable resemblance to that of Church- War den in 



SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 435 

England. The senior elder generally carries the Bread, and 
the rest follow him with the Wine cups and other utensils, 
which for the most part are of silver. These are placed at the 
head of the communion-table, which corresponds to the Altar 
in the Church of England. The communicants, agreeably to 
directions given them on a previous day, approach the 
tables, and after communicating, retire from them in such 
a manner as to avoid any confusion." Thus, while the 
singing was going on, we observed a number of people ad- 
vance from the crowd and seat themselves at the table. 
We observed that they were all old, and some of them very 
old people, and that the women, before advancing to the 
table, drew the hood of their cloaks, or shawl in fashion of 
a hood, over their heads ; and that both men and women 
took their seats with bowed heads, and with an air of 
solemn reverence. The minister, as we learn from Logan, 
had, before their approaching the table, addressed them in 
an awful discourse, called the " Fencing of the Tables," in 
which he had pointed out the character of those who are fit 
to sit down at the Sacrament Supper ; and added, " Let him 
whose character is opposite forbear to approach unto this 
table: stand back, thou profane! But let him who imi- 
tates and who loves this character, come forward; sit d&wn, 
thou blessed of the Lord !** 

When the communicants were seated, we observed the 
elders go behind them, and receive something from each of 
them, which we afterwards learned was a token of fitness 
given to such individual by the minister on a previous oc- 
casion. On the ceasing of the psalm the minister descended 
from his pulpit, and presented himself at the head of the 
table. He then offered up the prayer of consecration, and, 
again addressing the communicants in what is called " the 
Service of the Tables," handed the cup and the bread to 
the two communicants nearest him on each hand ; the elders 
attending, and presenting them in succession to all at the 
table. When all had communicated the minister again ad- 



436 SACRAMENT SUNDAY AT KILMORAC. 

dressed them, when they retired from the table, and a fresh 
company took their place. Another minister then came 
forward, and a new succession of psalms, prayers, and 
addresses took place. Such was the order and sacred busi- 
ness of the day, till the whole body of candidates had par- 
taken of the sacrament. We left about three o'clock, but 
we were told that the service would not close till six. Dur- 
ing the time that we stayed, we observed that no young 
people communicated, and we were afterwards told that 
few or none probably would, for that such was the general 
sense of the sacredness of the ordinance that few young peo- 
ple deemed themselves sufficiently "worthy to sit down." 
After leaving the burial-ground, we wandered some time 
through the woods of birch and the spreading junipers 
which skirted the river, now lying amid the crimson cushions 
of heath and the fragrance of the moorland thyme, and gaz- 
ing on the tumultuous floods raving and roaring far below 
us. It was a splendid day, and the whole was one enchant- 
ing fairy-land around us. The distant voice of the minister, 
and the wild cadence of the Gaelic psalm, like the breezy 
music of an Eolean harp, ever and anon reaching us in our 
verdant hiding-place, reminded us that it was the sacred 
anniversary of a grave and religious people. How unlike 
to the knowing and corrupt population of our own towns ! 
Where but in these rocky wilds could such simple piety 
and such patience of instruction remain ? It was, no doubt, 
the singular novelty of the spectacle, and the sense of the 
hallowed and uncorrupted faith still abiding with a patri- 
archal simplicity amongst these hills and moors, that gave 
an additional charm to the place, the people, and even the 
bright beauty of the day; and have thus fixed that Sacra- 
ment Sunday at Kilmorac with a peculiar sense of enjoy- 
ment in our memories. 

END OF THE FIRST SERIES. 




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